@GarethMcCaughan Yeah, I've never heard of Jacques Tati.
user61230
Hey, just in case you guys are interested in general strategy games, Frozen Synapse is $2.50 on Steam for two copies! (Definitely not looking for people to play with. Definitely not.)
user61230
(I figure since puzzles and strategy games so often go hand in hand.)
@Alconja currently trying to fit ECHO into the clue (def: copy, ache's innermost = CH, most horoscopy = O), but that seems tenuous and I have no idea how (if it does) "redouble double reaches" would clue E
I said it was a little rule-bending... :) That's indeed it. Parse as ["redouble"'s double = the double contained in "rEdoublE" = E] + ["reaChes acHes" innermost = CH] + [most hOrOscOpy = O] (def: copy)
Was trying to make the answer built into the structure, hence all the echoing... Perhaps not super successful, but an interesting exercise on the construction side.
@Volatility I'm going with BEAUTY. Model (def) some letters (B U T) I heard (homophoned, bee-you-tee → beauty).
Other possible answers: ALEXIS or HELENA. Both are models of some repute (Alexis Ren and Helena Christensen) (def), and both names can be homophones ("I heard") for some letters (L X S and L N A, respectively).
by the way, I thought from discussions in SL (though don't see this confirmed by Deusovi's post) that "example of word" (vs. "synonym of word") was supposed to be hinted. ("..., maybe" or the like). is that not the case?
@Rubio Yep, that's true. That's a rule for normal crosswords too. ("Dog" can clue DALMATIAN, but you need "Dalmatian, for one" (or "for instance") to clue DOG.)
All the Ohio state teams for whatever sport seems to be the Buckeyes, so I'm guessing something significant lies in the wording 'Team from Ohio state'.
The team is the Buckeyes, their (very common) nickname is the Bucks - I don't think that was out of line, but if you didn't know that you might not ever get it
@Mithrandir are you going to bother adding an s? I don't really mind, you can just add in the question that another 's' is needed. It won't spoil anything
Source at http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/138997/Tolkien_08_The_War_of_the_Ring.pdf
The rope lay slack for a long while as Sam stared at it.
Suddenly it drew taut, and nearly caught him at unawares. He
braced his feet, and wondering [read wondered] what had
happened and whet...
@BeastlyGerbil Hello, be careful not to leave mistakes when you edit something. I mean, sometimes, adding/removing a tag is not the only thing to edit in a post (cf puzzling.stackexchange.com/posts/46204/revisions)
@LukasRotter Looking at the comments from Emrakul, he deleted it because it didn't contain an explanation, but I suspect some of it was to do with i being slightly inappropriate
Well, it's a lose-lose situation for RobStone then. Explain it - get deleted; Don't explain it - Get deleted. So a lacking explanation is a good enough reason to delete an answer? wow.
wait, I'm confused now. I thought what Rand al'Thor (allegedly) had was (alleged) evidence that Gamow was engaged in large-scale sockpuppetry. And I thought Gamow had a long (recently expired?) ban for large-scale sockpuppetry. But Emrakul's answer in meta says the issue has been brought up many times and "it's not actionable right now". What have I misunderstood?
I find it difficult to upvote this question, because I would like to see a bit more patience on the part of the community with the moderation team when mistakes are made. However, I've upvoted anyway, because you certainly made me stop and think. (And, perhaps, write a bit too voluminously. I thi...
(Assuming he is guilty:) I think the only reason Gamow wasn't suspended for plagiarism sockpuppetry is that he protected his sockpuppets well. I think mods have access to e-mail addresses and all connecting IP addresses from a user (maybe more). Without that, there's never 100% proof these are his sockpuppets.
Dude, what if I ask one of my friends to register into the site, post a question and then I answer the question. There would be no signs of sockpuppetry unless this is done in a large scale. (Ofc, I am not telling that's what Gamow(allegedly) did).
That being said, I don't think it is right to discuss about specific users especially when we have nothing against them. In all fairness, they might well be innocent.
I think there's anything wrong with discussing about it. Rand can bring the evidence forward, and everyone can decide what they think about it on their own.
Exactly what Emrakul said.. It could simply lead to witch-hunt. Better, if Rand privately sends it to people and they can decide on their own as to how they view it.
I'm saying there would be nothing wrong with posting it on meta IMO. What people decide to do in consequence isn't Rand's responsibility. If someone decides to downvote Gamow's posts, they A) break a core philosophy of SE and B) may be guilty of serial downvoting. Not sure if a significant amount of people would do that, I think most would act reasonably (might be too optimistic on my part)
My gong riddle has been solved ... twice, kinda. I'm not quite sure what to do with the checkmark.
This is the correct answer ... but user_MK found that word already, despite thinking the solution was a letter instead of a word. I'm not sure if I should just award you the tick or encourage user_MK to edit their answer so I can award it to them. — rand al'thor1 min ago
@Sid It does. The correct answer should be obvious (in a "damn, why didn't I think of that earlier" way and possibly a "damn you Rand, you sneaky bugger" way) once you see it. Perhaps I should add another hint ...
The I-abuse in that riddle reminds me of an old old joke. Teacher: "Can anyone give me of an example of a sentence with I in it?" Little Johnny: "I is ..." Teacher: "Now now, Johnny, you should know it has to be 'I am'." Johnny: "Oh, OK. I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."
I have to say I don't really understand the first half of the second stanza if "going" is the answer.
I used to exist in a simple world of right and wrong, positive and negative.
I grew out of an ordered world.
Everything had its place before I came along and belonged nowhere.
I cannot be compared; neither greater nor less nor equal to nothing.
Now you see /ɪts/ /pleɪn/. I made the world com...
The usual infinitive form? Come on. "Going" is absolutely commonplace and you hear it all the time. You can't possibly describe it as "not the one you're used to" even if another happens to be a bit more common. (I wonder whether it even is -- "going" has a special use in the construction "going to do X".)
@Randal'Thor The "I is what is not real" one uses the correct verb form throughout.
Curiously, the difference in frequency has got a lot smaller over the last ~100 years; it used to be more like 2x. I conjecture that this is in fact because of the "going to" construction, which is kinda informal and used not to be found in print so often.
Anyway: sorry, my reaction to this one is neither "damn, why didn't I think of that" nor "damn you, you sneaky bugger" but xkcd.com/169 .
anyway, I'm being ruder than I like to be -- my apologies again, Rand -- and I'll drop it now :-).
The XKCD 169 thing is what we used to call a "lynch mob" clue, back in the day. Like in this riddle, where the OP says "I recommend using a list for this" and then the answer turns out to be LIST.
@GarethMcCaughan I don't think that should be tagged meta-knowledge ...
@GarethMcCaughan-That line doesn't mean anything. It gives us 3 clues - 1. It just makes use of 7 alphabets. 2. It doesn't rhyme(which is a thing with haiku's" 3. It uses 7 letters
I think there's a difference between xkcd 169 and lynch mob. Or at least, between xkcd 169 and that particular riddle. That riddle is basically sound, whereas the point of the xkcd 169 thing is that the question actively misleads.
@Randal'Thor-Not sure about the tag. I went through the tag info and used it. Thought, the lines being the data speaks about something another data and hence used it.
I know how a haiku works, but I don't understand how the "My rhymes" line "makes use of 7 alphabets" or "uses 7 letters", or the same with 5 in place of 7
oh. we're supposed to count unique letters in each line?
@Techidiot The meta-knowledge tag is usually used for puzzles where you need to use information about knowledge possessed by the characters in the story in order to find the solution. As far as I can tell, your puzzle is just a standard riddle/enigmatic puzzle, and the fact that the narrator works out what the girl is talking about isn't relevant to the solution.
I'm having some trouble with the framing story too. The girl wrote a haiku, so you wrote down some lines including a rough description of a haiku and where the counts of unique letters on each line match the syllable counts of a haiku. And after doing that ... rather elaborate ... thing, you then couldn't remember what it was the girl had written?
(maybe not "wrote down" but "thought up", actually)
also, just so we're clear, a haiku isn't just "any thing consisting of 5 syllables + 7 syllables + 5 syllables". It's got to have a juxtaposition of ideas with a formally marked separation between them ("cutting") and a seasonal reference.
anyway, again I'm being excessively cranky and will drop it now :-). Sorry.
(except they didn't understand the logic -- they didn't get the "unique letters" thing at all, but got from "even ends" and "wide at mid" and a Japanese name to "haiku")
My gut feeling however, tells me that they shouldn't rhyme. A major aspect of haikus is that they are rather straight-to-the-point without elaborate non-substantial metaphor (the symbolic meaning is to be established by the reader himself), which I feel the non-rhyming aspect adds quite a bit to.
@Randal'Thor yeah, I would generally agree that a rhyme would be a distraction, though AIUI some translators of haiku into English have thought that they should rhyme.
MY friend, your luck has Turned.
i've made tHIs Riddle and it is the best, anD "soon iT sHould bE solved.
if it is not, then a QUIet miNd mighT let sEedS be Sown, within which idEas caN grow.
in essenCE: at THE end, in one small day, seCRetly, Our vieW regarding the solution caN be tO...
@Sid dunno. The hints don't seem super-surprising to me. (I.e., interpreting something like caps/non-caps as bits is one of a moderate number of roughly equally plausible things to do first.)
But I don't know as yet whether doing that will lead to anything nice and clear or not.
The OP tells that we have to solve in a right pattern and each will lead to a clue as to how to solve the next. Fair enough. However, the question never mentions as to which things to solve first. (And if it does, I am clearly missing it)
well, there are small numbers of red characters, italics, etc., but lots of capitals, so I would be very surprised if caps/non-caps weren't the correct first layer given hint 1. On the other hand, 43 characters is a surprising number. (We have 216 letters, which would make sense as e.g. 36 6-bit characters. And 57 words, which could produce 57 characters. But 43?)
Having a tag for imgur mazes might encourage people to make more of them. I am not sure that would be a good thing.
and you can, as Sconibulus says, just map numbers to letters if the out-of-range ones aren't used (or maybe if just one is used and it might be a word separator or something)
oh, 43 = 215/5 (sorry, I'm clearly also very slow today)
I wonder whether I managed to miscount the characters
Source at http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/138997/Tolkien_08_The_War_of_the_Ring.pdf
The rope lay slack for a long while as Sam stared at it.
Suddenly it drew taut, and nearly caught him at unawares. He
braced his feet, and wondering [read wondered] what had
happened and whet...
I used to exist in a simple world of right and wrong, positive and negative.
I grew out of an ordered world.
Everything had its place before I came along and belonged nowhere.
I cannot be compared; neither greater nor less nor equal to nothing.
Now you see /ɪts/ /pleɪn/. I made the world com...
MY friend, your luck has Turned.
i've made tHIs Riddle and it is the best, anD "soon iT sHould bE solved.
if it is not, then a QUIet miNd mighT let sEedS be Sown, within which idEas caN grow.
in essenCE: at THE end, in one small day, seCRetly, Our vieW regarding the solution caN be tO...
