The Sphinx's Lair

12:05 AM

0

Q: Fortnightly Topic Challenge #21: Geography

This is the twenty-first instalment of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge described here, with topics suggested and voted on here. This fortnight's topic is geography(suggested by David Starkey), and will span from the the 28th of November to the 11th of December. During this period, we will compile...

Rand al'Thor

12:17 AM

Wow, @LukasRotter was fast on the chopic tallenge posts this fortnight.

In other news, after almost making a typo when raising a mod flag, I've now started using spoonerisms in PSE mod flags. I hope our friendly triumvirs will appreciate it :-D

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor UTC 00:00:02 :P Thanks for the wikipedia link btw, I'll not make the same mistake again.

@Everyone (that ping will totally work): Please always tell me if you want to be the next one to post the new fortnightly topic post, edit the stats of the previous one and update the list... Because if not, I'm going to post it at UTC 00:00 from now on (and also edit everything UTC 00:00).

bleh

12:56 AM

@Mithrandir Don't deny it... you were trying to get an announcer right... JK

boboquack

1:06 AM

@LukasRotter can you also put the featured tag on the new challenge?

Lukas Rotter

@boboquack Nope, only mods can do that.

Rand al'Thor

I've already flagged it for mods, so we just need to wait for one of them to show up and retag.

boboquack

@Randal'Thor I wart you thur spoonerising.

Rand al'Thor

@boboquack Hoo I dav to spoonerise everything now?

boboquack

@Randal'Thor Up you too.

Rand al'Thor

1:15 AM

@boboquack Heh, I like when spoonerisms give momething seaningful but with a dompletely cifferent (sometimes rude) meaning.

Rubio

feeping creatureism is one of my favorites.

Rand al'Thor

in Mos Eisley, Oct 2 '15 at 0:21, by Wad Cheber

The lord is a shoving leopard.

Rubio

Oh. Oh my.

Rand al'Thor

"Nosy cook" is also night quice.

bleh

cozy nook?

Rubio

1:20 AM

Puzzling is, almost, a site on the Ack Sexchange network.

Rand al'Thor

There's another one I like, but it might be too rude for me to mention in here.

@Rubio Experts Exchange = Expert Sex-Change.

Tack Sexchange?

Gareth McCaughan

Rammit Dand, I was just typing up a proper explanation of the Experts Exchange thing

Lukas Rotter

I like cop porn.. Maybe I should go shake a tower?

Gareth McCaughan

(since I wasn't sure whether Rubio was aware of the history)

boboquack

@Randal'Thor Sounds like a boating trip gone wrong...

Gareth McCaughan

1:22 AM

@LukasRotter Impressive.

Rubio

Not sure what the "history" is, but I've seen any number of unintentionally bad domain names

Penisland.net being a personal favorite

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio Nothing terribly exciting in the history, and probably nothing you don't know already.

Lukas Rotter

"Your pen is - Our business!"

Is that website for real? "We Specialize In Wood"

Gareth McCaughan

Just the fact that before Ack Sexchange -- excuse me, Stack Exchange -- and its original site Stack Overflow for software development Q&A, the leading name in that business (which was absolutely terrible) was called Experts Exchange, and their website really was expertsexchange.com. And yes, they were probably referred to as Expert Sex Change about as often as by their real name.

I think I remember seeing some discussion before about whether Pen Island could possibly be for real, and the conclusion was that probably it was real but that at some point they'd decided to embrace the ambiguity in their name and make a thing out of it. (Whether that was the plan all along, who knows?)

Will

@LukasRotter explosm.net/comics/647

Gareth McCaughan

1:27 AM

I can't endorse (or unendorse) that conclusion -- I never really lookde myself.

*looked

Rubio

there's also TheRapistFinder.com and SpeedoFart.com

Lukas Rotter

That seems like it could be correct. Even the logo is very suggestive...

bleh

this is getting pretty weird

Rubio

and a few, now since gone to the great bit bucket in the sky, including such gems as powergenitalia.com and teacherstalking.org

Gareth McCaughan

Early in "The TeXbook", when Knuth talks about hyphenation, he gives as an example of bad hyphenation "the-rapists pre-aching on wee-knights".

Rubio

1:30 AM

hehe

I want to know who ever thought whorepresents.com was a good idea

Gareth McCaughan

yeah

I think the fundamental explanation for all these is that people are really stupid. (Present company not excepted. Myself especially not excepted.)

Rubio

Who are stu calling yewpid?

Rand al'Thor

1:44 AM

Ah, @Deusovi is around on meta. I hope he appreciates the floonerismy spags, and doesn't think I'm calling teachers fags or something :-P

Deusovi

Don't worry, I get it. :P

Rand al'Thor

I've been looking forward to the geography and animals chopic tallenges. Hopefully I'll be able to produce some interesting puzzles in the next few weeks!

Anyway, off to bed. Goodnight all.

Alconja

Ok, this is the best I can do @GarethMcCaughan, and I admit it's weak, but god damn it if it doesn't "work"... : TEMPTATION: TEMP (casual) TAT (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen = "actor") ION (engaged in => put a ring on "in" => O IN => ION) def:seduction

Deusovi

@Alconja Yeah, that's probably not it. :P

Alconja

you think?!? :P

I think the weakest part is claiming that Ms Thiessen is an "actor"

Puzzling Meta

1:53 AM

-2

Q: Are [word-property] puzzles similar to poor ciphers where you must break a random code?

Take a look at this sample question: If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it an X/Y/Z Word™. Use the following examples below to find the rule. Examples are then listed below, and that's it. Take a look at another sample question: Below is a cipher: ABCDEFGH Can ...

discussion

Rubio

@Alconja She's clearly an ActrESS. ;-) (and yeah. that's totally the only thing wrong with this whole line of pursuit)

@Deusovi Hey, @Randal'Thor was making some dodgy comments about teachers earlier. I'm going to post a complaint on Meta because I don't like that sort of thing. Cool right? (*cough*)

Huh. Hey @GarethMcCaughan ... you gave "T---T----" for your latest 4C. Unless I can't count, which is entirely possible, that's only 9 letters. Where's the missing one - before the 2nd T, or after?

Gareth McCaughan

2:37 AM

@Rubio If that's what I wrote then I mistyped. It should be: T---T-----. T, three blanks, T, five blanks.

Rubio

Thanks. I assumed that but wanted to be sure.

Gareth McCaughan

@Alconja and others: I would not use a person's initials in that fashion in a crossword clue unless I knew them to be commonly known by those initials. Neither would I use "engaged" to clue the letter O, ingenious though the idea is. (I might use "ring" to clue an O, of course.) I would generally not use "actor" to refer to a female person-who-acts, though I rather hope that sort of gender-labelled term will go away some day.

(none of the above should be taken as saying anything about whether TEMPTATION is in fact the answer; I propose a general policy that when a possible answer is suggested with a definitely unsound explanation clue-setters should refrain from saying whether the answer is correct unless asked directly, and confine themselves to rejecting the explanation. I am aware that I have not always followed this policy myself but will try to do better in future.)

Rubio

Actor is pretty much gender non-specific now, at least in the relevant industries.

Alconja

All of which I assumed (except for maybe the actor vs actress bit, which is of little importance in this context)... I'm just out of ideas. :)

@GarethMcCaughan And I agree... I think that's a reasonable rule. Would be to easy otherwise for me to just list the ~50 odd words in T.{3}T.{5}

Rubio

I've got 131. Admittedly a lot are unlikely to appear in the typical dictionary.

Alconja

2:49 AM

litscape gave 56, but I was deliberately using the most limited default dictionary under the assumption that Gareth isn't cluing a particularly rare/non-standard word...

Rubio

It doesn't help that some are foreign. Why they're in my english wordlist is another matter entirely. :)

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio I think what matters for crosswords is how it's used by the public at large, and (unfortunately) my impression is that for most people in most contexts a female-person-who-acts is called an actress and not called an actor. I hope this will change.

Rubio

I think the fundamental explanation for why that is still so in the general population is that people are really stupid. (Present company not excepted. Myself especially not excepted.)

Alconja

Yeah, agreed. I think actor (female) is fine, but at the end of the day, the academies still give out best actress awards, which is a closer representation of common usage.

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio Tee hee. In this case, I think stupidity alone is insufficient explanation.

Rubio

2:52 AM

@GarethMcCaughan Oh let me have my fun. ;)

Alconja

3:04 AM

Ok, so @Rubio... what options jump out at you from your list? I see as possibilities: temptation, temptingly (though that's grammatically awkward as a seduction definition), theatrical (casual actor? again weak grammatically), traitorous (maybe engaged in seduction in a more spy vs spy sense?), twittering (ultra loose slang for casual?)...

...really though, only temptation seems a "correct" fit

Rubio

3:23 AM

I have no good fits, other than temptation

I have "temptatory" but that's little better than "temptingly" for grammatical reasons

Sconibulus

So far all I've come up with different than that is something like 'tractoring' I know tring isn't a thing, and tractoring doesn't mean casual, but with the pattern match and 'actor' right there in the middle it might be right directionish

Alconja

3:55 AM

Ahh tractoring... classic seduction move I used to use on all the ladies back in the day. :)

Sid

4:07 AM

Does anyone know, how to get a customised image of a position set-up on a chessboard?

Alconja

I used lichess for my chess/sudoku unconventional tag fusion puzzle

Sid

Alconja

You have to screenshot, but other than that you can drag pieces around as much as you want

Sid

Boo... Nothing other than that?

Alconja

Not sure... so you're after that, but such that you don't have to break out the snipping tool?

Sid

4:18 AM

A little bit of changes to that..

Yeah, such that I don't have to break the snipping tool

Alconja

looks like this one lets you save the image

jinchess.com/chessboard/…

Sid

Never mind, I got it...

Thanks for the help, anyway.. :-)

Sid

4:41 AM

@boboquack What have you got with the chain of computer puzzles? Any idea about that password?

boboquack

@Sid I have tried a lot of passwords guessing, but haven't found any small text. I think the best way is to compare docs with the original - there is a link for that at the start of the PDF, but since I am on mobile, I can't do that.

Sid

@boboquack There are 162 pages. Certainly, the OP is not that cruel as to hide a clue in 162 pages of a book and then expect the solver to find it out by himself.

boboquack

I mean, not a link to compare, but a link to the original.

Sid

sherlock-holm.es

The above one is the link

boboquack

A line that strikes me as odd is on page 6 where it has something about EgPGt

Sid

4:58 AM

Looks like some sort of an imgur link..

Rubio

Those letters are in the original text (checked my actual dead-trees copy). Unless he used a shortener that lets you pick your own - and he didn't use tinyurl - it's not that

I don't suppose anyone has had any luck decoding the first code? my guess, though no means certain, is that it will give some hint where in his doctored text the next password can be found. my big fear is that the hinted-at need for some technical skill means it won't be quite that simple.

Deusovi

5:27 AM

Hey @Emrakul, you got HNQed over on RPG.SE!

6

Q: How do I technobabble without sounding like technobabble?

On occasion, I've had reason to describe obviously fictional technical processes in-character. I'd like to be able to describe on these occasions without sounding like I'm saying utter gibberish. But it's not straightforward to do, particularly if I have to make stuff up on the spot. How do I d...

system-agnostic roleplaying science-fiction

Ankoganit

5:38 AM

OK @Deusovi @Alconja @Rubio, for @Gareth 's clue, how does this sound? TEMP(=casual)+TION (= suffix indicating action ~ actor) engages AT(=in) -> TEMPT(AT)ION, and ofc def=seduction.

Deusovi

@Ankoganit: Sounds good to me!

Ankoganit

If that's the intended one, then TION~actor is indeed clever.

Alconja

actor => tion feels pretty weak

Rubio

I've been looking at that since yesterday, and didn't really think "TION" was a good fit. It feels... bad

boboquack

@Sid The first code was solved in my partial answer.

Alconja

5:42 AM

And (maybe I'm just reading wrong, but) I'm struggling to parse your "engaged in" => AT...

Ankoganit

@Alconja The whole thing "TEMPTION" engages (i.e., contains) "AT"

Does that make more sense?

boboquack

@Rubio The first code was solved in my partial answer (Sorry Sid, clicked the wrong reply button)

Rubio

@boboquack Oh hm, I missed it, will go look

Alconja

@Ankoganit I ...guess. Though it's engageD, not engageS, and in => at is not a synonym i'd think of...

Rubio

bah. Good deciphering, but it's as I feared - the first code only got us to the right story, which couild be simply bypassed with a ctrl-F and the right search word

"engaged in" => AT, I am engaged in work => I am at work. I assumed that is what you were going with.

(that's what I was trying anyway - not that it got me anywhere satisfying)

Ankoganit

5:48 AM

@Rubio If you get the whole "engaged in" thing to mean AT, then there's no container indicator

Rubio

It was my understanding that it's possible (though atypical) for a single word to serve double duty as part of two different bits of wordplay

boboquack

@Rubio I also haven't found anything in the Imgur image in case it's been hidden steganographically. Then again, I'm not very advanced with steganography-maybe that's the way to go.

Rubio

Hm. I didn't even think of that, which is a bit silly of me.

Am I the only one who finds cipher puzzles featuring long strings of randomish glyphs to be really annoying to grind through?

@boboquack either Gimp is lying to me, or I don't know what I'm doing*, or there's nothing at all in the imgur but the black background and the obvious white text of the url. * I freely concede this is entirely possible. :)

boboquack

@Rubio Thought so.

@Rubio BTW the entry on Wiktionary says: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/facal

(Which doesn't seem to help)

Rubio

Wha? No, that totally cleared it right up for me. :)

boboquack

6:02 AM

Wondering if I should just try to generate a hash collision (not that I know how to do that)

boboquack

6:28 AM

Anyone else get any thoughts on the Chain of Computer/Code Puzzles?

ffao

7:49 AM

@boboquack there is a code hidden in that png file

imgur.com/a/lraBC

ffao

8:05 AM

well, turned out to be quite an easy code, even I could crack it! :P

Rubio

@ffao *mutter* ok how did you find that code? I couldn't find anything in it

or was that crap hidden in the white?

ffao

the .png file is two pngs concatenated

I deleted the contents of the first one using a hex editor

Rubio

oh for the love of

remind me to shank someone. :) nice find.

boboquack

Have any clue what was supposed to inspire us to do that?

Rubio

That kind of completely unhinted shenanigans is really annoying

ffao

8:11 AM

the only hint I found was what I listed in my answer

why link to a PNG instead of to the PDF directly?

that must mean the PNG had to have some purpose

boboquack

What control characters denote the PNG file format?

ffao

the start of a png file is 89 50 4e 47 0d 0a 1a 0a

50 4e 47 is "PNG" in ASCII

so it's easy to see in a text editor

boboquack

Can't believe I didn't see that - I opened the file on Notepad++ and found what looked like a whole lot of gibberish. I guess my only consolation was that I was looking for URLs and the PNG was on line 88 after a whole lot of NULs.

Mithrandir

9:02 AM

@Rubio ldhdicdbsuerac are the correct letters.

Rubio

darn.

Beastly Gerbil

9:18 AM

@Rubio thanks for the edit

Rubio

Yar

any idea on the anagram?

it's one letter (swap a c for an a) from being "such a bad riddle". ;)

Beastly Gerbil

Nope, and I don't really see how we are susposed to derive anything from it

That would have been goid

Rubio

Yeah. I was almost certain that was it, but apparently no.

Beastly Gerbil

@Mithrandir can we have a clue on what the descrambled line is?

Mithrandir

@BeastlyGerbil Nope. :P

Beastly Gerbil

9:27 AM

Whenever I put it into an anagrammer, I get a load of long words which make noo sense.

Are the words mostly short @Mithrandir?

Mithrandir

It's 3 words

Beastly Gerbil

Woah ok

So either a couple of very short words and a long one or 3 mediums...

Mithrandir

One big, one medium, and one small.

Beastly Gerbil

What?

Mithrandir

Sorry, I keep forgetting to switch the keyboard.

Beastly Gerbil

9:29 AM

What language was that! :P

Mithrandir

Hebrew

Beastly Gerbil

Cool, never seen that before

Rubio

well. hebrew characters, english words, I assume. :)

Mithrandir

@Rubio Yup.

I just forgot to switch the language from typing in hebrew.

Rubio

It seems like a monumental coincidence that the letters for "riddle" are in there, but there are no viable anagrams including that word

Mithrandir

9:31 AM

It's not one of them.

Rubio

(nor "riddles")

Mithrandir

It is a coincidence

Beastly Gerbil

exceppt riddle chubs cad from my anagrammer :P

Rubio

same for "clue" or "clues" whose letters are also there

Mithrandir

Just coincidence.

Beastly Gerbil

9:32 AM

the words are real words that the anagrammer should recognise , right?

Mithrandir

yes

Rubio

at this point I'm floundering. without some context, picking the right anagram from the list of, oh, 700 or so that it could be? that's going to take all night.

Mithrandir

Cool :P

Beastly Gerbil

and are they related to the puzzle?

Mithrandir

Related to one of the books, sort of

Rubio

9:33 AM

there's only 60 books, that shouldn't take long. hehe

Mithrandir

One of the special books.

Beastly Gerbil

ooohhhh

Rubio

i hope this doesn't require some special knowledge of the Divergent series

Mithrandir

@Rubio nope

I've never even read them. ;P

Beastly Gerbil

I see 'circles' in the anagram, so red circles?

Mithrandir

9:36 AM

Tell me, is that a special one?

Beastly Gerbil

I don't know, is it?

Mithrandir

X

Rubio

None of the "circle" anagrams mean anything

divergent had the I

Mithrandir

It's one of the books that had something that you needed.

Rubio

Hobbit had other stuff

what other books were important?

Beastly Gerbil

9:38 AM

something tells me the special book will be saruman because of your icon

letters arent there though

books we have got something from: saruman, life of fred, hobbit, deathly hallows, divergent

so we have 5 books

Mithrandir

one of those should be expanded beyond that individual book

And my avatar is Sauron.

Beastly Gerbil

haryy potter

oh yeah :P

Rubio

deathly hallows, Life of Fred

oh you're ahead of me lol

Beastly Gerbil

okay so I think its harry potter

Mithrandir

I'm gonna try that image again...

Beastly Gerbil

9:45 AM

aaaah this is so frustrating

Rubio

@Mithrandir i gave you some suggestions. the last one actually put the missing "I" back in, so you may not want to do that.

Mithrandir

@Rubio Where?

Rubio

oh way back. hang on

off your latest grid ppSHv i get unuseds as: u d c c e d a s r b h e → a b c c d d e e h r s u ... an extra E, a missing D,L,I. assuming: GEO and RAD are not words, and LED is (cuz it is)... make it DED again, replace the E that's two down and two left from the top right corner with a L. (and the bottom-right-most T with an I, if you want to fix that glitch too.) I think that would fix the word search. I think.

Mithrandir

I'm confused. Can you make a rudimentary grid for me please? :P

Rubio

not easily at the moment. gimme a bit

Mithrandir

9:48 AM

Okay, thanks.

@Randal'Thor Just BTW, in my defense: Even the guy who did Kryptos made a mistake. I'm 14 - what do you expect?

Rubio

geez. is everyone on this site under 16?

Beastly Gerbil

I really doubt it :P

Mithrandir

Nope. My brother's 18.

Beastly Gerbil

Scimonster?

Mithrandir

Yup.

Rand al'Thor

9:57 AM

@Mithrandir I know, I know. I hope you didn't take my comment too harshly! :-)

Beastly Gerbil

There are only 3 users who are 13 and have 100+ rep...

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Don't worry, I didn't.

Beastly Gerbil

Thats the site that is

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio I can confirm that the answer to that is no. Although a lot of people here do seem to be, let's say, unusually young. I think two of the mods are under 21.

Mithrandir

Emrakul's like 17.

Beastly Gerbil

9:59 AM

Only 7 users on site who are 13...

Rubio

I was being facetious. But only partially. :)

I think I'm bringing the site average age up all by myself. hehe

Beastly Gerbil

I find it amusing how two of our moderators haven't left school yet...

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir He WAS 17, back when he first became a mod. That's over 2 years ago now.

@BeastlyGerbil There's no real way of telling, since not everyone enters their age on-site (and those who do don't necessarily tell the truth).

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Ah. SOmetimes I forget to look at when what I was reading was posted. :P

Deusovi was 17 when he ran this year.

Rubio

I didn't do what I s uggested as it didn't actually work. ^ THAT should, and the missing "I" is not in there so it's still needed in the Divergent clueing.

Mithrandir

10:15 AM

@Rubio thanks, i'll take a look.

gtg now tho.

Beastly Gerbil

gtg too

Rubio

cyas

Mithrandir

11:50 AM

@Rubio That's almost perfect. the only problem would be that the 'd' all the way in the top right would be left too. But I changed the other lone 'd' into an 'e', so it works.

Rubio

Oh. Yeah, I forgot that D gets unstuck too. oops. :)

So the other lone d becomes an E and gets marked off by GEE ?

that oughta do it, yah

Mithrandir

12:32 PM

@Rubio No, it get's marked off with WET.

Rubio

oh. THAT other D. :)

Sid

12:51 PM

@Randal'Thor Does your gong really have an answer? I am pretty sure,everyone has tried all the permutations of gong in their answers..

dcfyj

1:27 PM

My meta-piece is the last man standing?

I find that rather surprising

Gareth McCaughan

CCCC: I would not use "actor" to clue "-tion". Ingenious but a step too far, I think. I'd be pretty uncomfortable with having "engaged in" mean "surrounding the letters AT", though I might do such things in desperation :-). Would y'all like confirmation of whether or not the word is in fact TEMPTATION?

dcfyj

I still like FOREPLAYED :P

Rubio

@GarethMcCaughan If it is TEMPTATION I think the decoding of the clue to reach it is beyond us - we've given it plenty of thought and can't get there. I for one wouldn't mind a confirmation as to which way we should (re)focus.

Gareth McCaughan

Any other opinions on that? (I don't want to spoil things for people who are still thinking...)

Lukas Rotter

I really hope it's not temptation, but I'm pretty sure it is ;_; (I'd also like confirmation)

dcfyj

1:38 PM

I don't even remember what it is haha

I just remember I like FOREPLAYED ^^

Gareth McCaughan

1:48 PM

OK, so the answer is indeed TEMPTATION (sorry, Lukas) and the reason is (in my opinion, at least) substantially more convincing than the ones given so far. Would you (pl.) like (1) a full explanation, (2) a hint, or (3) neither?

Sid

@Sumurai8 there aren't any bishops on the final position, right? The queen lands on e1 and captures the dark-squared bishop?

dcfyj

2:03 PM

@GarethMcCaughan I can see "casual actor" being temp, not sure how you get tation from "engaged in seduction" though

For some reason, every time I type that word I put an "a" in there...

Sid

@dcfyj Perhaps, "tion" from seduction and "engaged in" is at'

dcfyj

2:25 PM

That's kind of thin

Sid

If I have to link the solver to an imgur image for the next part of the puzzle, How do I know the link of the image? Or do I have to upload it to imgur,first?

dcfyj

Not sure what you're asking...

Sid

Say, The puzzle requires a solver to find out the link of the imgur image and head there. My question is, as the OP, how do I provide hints to the required link in the puzzle, itself? Do I have to beforehand upload the images to imgur?

Sconibulus

I think so, that seems like the only way to get the url

dcfyj

@Sid Yes, you need to post to imgur (or whatever site you intend on using) to get the link and then hint solvers to that link.

Ankoganit

2:35 PM

@Sid You can do this: attach the image in your post, and then remove the link. So it gets uploaded to stack.imgur (and stays there), but no longer in your post explicitly.

Sumurai8

@Sid During the last 2 moves there are always 6 pieces (well, actually 7 with the enemy king). I use "pressure" and similar words differently for the king and other pieces.

Sconibulus

@Ankoganit well, the issue there is that to be ready to post, you have to already have the puzzle pointing towards the link, which you don't have yet...

@Sumurai8 oooh, is there a chess puzzle going on?

Sumurai8

Well, it isn't exactly tagged chess, but it took people less than 3 minutes to figure that out.

Ankoganit

@Sconibulus Well, ofc, that's often the challenge in making these imgur mazes. Instead of having the actual post ready, one can even create a "ghost" answer/question, upload the image, note down the url, and then swallow the post.

dcfyj

@Sconibulus He just means, create a post (with the image) note the URL and then delete the content of the post without ever actually posting it.

Ankoganit

2:47 PM

BTW in my puzzle , I almost avoided that issue by making the conversation table, so that the actual puzzles don't depend on the imgur link, only the table does.

Sid

@Sconibulus The OP wants us to recreate a chess position from the things hinted in the puzzle.

I doubt, there is one solution, though..

Sumurai8

I will accept a solution that follows all clues. Right now the "queen on the battlements" clue has never been followed.

Sid

What do you mean by battlements? COuld you further clarify.

Sumurai8

Battlement

A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which rectangular gaps or indentations occur at intervals to allow for the discharge of arrows or other missiles from within the defences. These gaps are termed "crenels" (also known as carnels, embrasures, or wheelers), and the act of adding crenels to a previously unbroken parapet is termed crenellation. Thus, a defensive building might be designed and built with battlements, or a manor house might be fortified by adding battlements...

Where would you find them?

Sid

A fortress?

Near the castled king?

Gareth McCaughan

3:04 PM

I have to say that I can't imagine how the text in the puzzle can possibly lead to a specific answer that's clearly better than all others.

(And it has a bit of a "guess what I'm thinking" feel to it.)

Sumurai8

If a week from the time I put the puzzle online no-one has posted the "right" board, I'll do a step by step reconstruction.

@Sid The only other hint I can give I think is: How would you try to show this on a chess board? Other than using a permanent marker to ruin the board.

Sid

"This"? You mean how the position occurred?

Sumurai8

It is a position clue, yes. A position clue just before a movement happened. If you figure out where the queen was, you should be able to position three other pieces.

Sid

Well, the queen might have been at f1 or g3 after which she returned to e1

Sumurai8

Use two pieces for that position clue.

Sid

3:20 PM

What I think, is there is no dark-squared bishop in the final position.A pawn is on h2, two knights at g4 and e3 respectively and possibly a pawn on g2 or a light-squared bishop on g2.

Sumurai8

The king would catch a cold.

Sid

@GarethMcCaughan What is the explanation for the cryptic clue? You could delete your answer if you don't want to spoil it.

dcfyj

3:36 PM

@Sumurai8 I believe I have your board @Sumurai8 :P

Sid

@dcfyj Good job.. Looks like you got it right. :-)

dcfyj

Not sure why no one else had a rook though

Sid

I assumed, the rook was caputred already and thus used an extra knight to guard that f1 square

dcfyj

Ah

Sid

I don't understand your last line, though. "If the queen hadn't moved, she would have captured the pawn"- How?

dcfyj

3:41 PM

If the queen had not moved she would've been in line with the pawn when it moved forward, and thus captured it when it when for the "checkmate"

Sid

Ah, The queen should have sacrificed herself for the safety of the king. That sort of thing never happens. :P

dcfyj

Pretty much :P

Sconibulus

bah, that's a Queen-Rook vs Knight Bishop endgame, the Queen could have gone on the attack and won the gmae

dcfyj

Or she could've moved to f4 which would be a great defensive location

Sconibulus

no sacrifice required

Sid

3:44 PM

And the double attack on the bishop and the knight.

Except, the OP didn't want optimum play. He just wanted white to lose.

dcfyj

@Sid and the pawn if it moved forward :P

Sid

How about, check on f7? Then the rook joins the attack.

Sconibulus

it looks like with that particular position, white wins in 6

Sid

In 7 moves.

check on f8, then rook check on f7,etc.

Lukas Rotter

Shouldn't MBBs account also be suspended for plagiarism?

dcfyj

3:49 PM

No idea

Sconibulus

I was thinking Qf7, Qh5, Qg5

Lukas Rotter

He just posted a puzzle...

dcfyj

Oh hey @Deusovi you snuck in here :P

Sconibulus

oooh, that's probably a 'getting around suspension'-type no-no

Lukas Rotter

The suspension of AK makes no sense if he's allowed to post with his other accounts

Oh ok, he's trying to provoke deletion of all his accounts

dcfyj

3:51 PM

wow, he just wrote this "@Overlords: Even after being told to not use sockpuppets, I'm using this, and I even posted this question. Shouldn't this nefarious activity be rewarded with deletion of both account ? "

I don't get why he doesn't just delete his own account(s) instead of provoking others

Lukas Rotter

It's part of the stupid experiment....

Gareth McCaughan

I really don't understand AK's brain at all.

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan No kidding :S

Sid

@Sconibulus I was thinking, Qf8 Kh7, Rf7 Kg6,Rg7 Kh5, Qc5 Bd5, Qxd5 Ne5, Qxe5 Kh6, Qg5++

Deusovi

Yeah, I don't either.

(Also, hey!)