The Sphinx's Lair

IAmInPLS

08:21

Not sure if I fully understood those badges, but is there a possibility that I get Populist and Reversal on this question? Or am I totally wrong?

Rubio

09:05

The accepted answer has to get to at least 10, and your answer to at least 20, but it's certainly possible you could get both yes

Puzzling Meta

15:17

0

Q: When should riddles be considered duplicates?

Many questions here on PSE are in the form of a straightforward riddle. I'm not talking about more complex puzzles which have a riddle element as well as many other parts to them, but just about puzzles which consist of a single riddle, with a single solution, and nothing else. When should two s...

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Hence my latest meta question ^

Rubio

we're going to accuse you of abusing your dupehammer powers anyway. Muahahaaa..

Anyway. I don't think you can just look at the answer to conclude that two riddles which resolve to the same thing are of necessity duplicate, or even probably duplicate; I'd say they have to follow a very similar path to get you to that answer, with similar/identical hintings

dcfyj

At the same time, I see Rand's point. You can only describe the same object in so many different ways.

Geobits

If the descriptions are close or matching, then sure. It's a judgement call imo. I know that's not as clear cut as "the answer is the same, so dupe", but that's why we give the hammer to the experienced people.

dcfyj

15:36

I have said hammer, but I don't know if I'd be using it in this case.

Rubio

Well. I posted on the Meta. TL;DR: we're solving the puzzle and not the answer; if the puzzles are substantially unique, then they're not duplicates.

IAmInPLS

Agreed with Rubio: having the same answer on two riddles doesn't mean that the puzzle itself is a duplicate

Rubio

Obviously if 80% of the hinting is the same in different words/rhymes/order/whatever but fundamentally the same riddle, they're probably duplicate. But if two riddles take different approaches to get you to the same answer, there's a good likelihood that (at least) one of them put conscious thought into providing a novel approach to setting their riddle; negating their effort because it lands at the same answer would be pretty craptacular.

Gareth McCaughan

So, solution to D's CCCC is LIPOGRAM (I admit I actually got this almost instantly but didn't want to say as I was too busy to post a followup at that point; sorry).

@Randal'Thor @Rubio @IAmInPLS: I concur with @Rubio and @IAmInPLS contra @Randal'Thor. Hinting must match.

Rubio

@GarethMcCaughan Huh. Never even heard that word before. Nice.

Gareth McCaughan

15:42

But now I must construct my own C.C.C.C. again. Alas.

Rubio

so I have a question

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan Wordplay description?

Gareth McCaughan

Last 3 words.

dcfyj

isn't that the definition?

Gareth McCaughan

oops, sorry

Rubio

15:43

if I want to clue a particular thing that itself has two meanings - say, "Reading" which is both a verb and a place - is there a way to clue both in a cryptic?

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Your post makes some good points, but it reads as more a refutation of my answer than an actual answer of its own.

Gareth McCaughan

@dcfyj POGR [without U] in MAIL backwards

dcfyj

Ok, I got the "u" removal right away, but for whatever reason I couldn't see out of what word lol

Rand al'Thor

I've got to run, but maybe you could edit your answer to provide your own suggestion as to when riddles should count as duplicates (not just when they shouldn't), or post it as a comment instead?

Rubio

@Randal'Thor Yeah you're right - I'll add a blurb. I meant to say what I said in here actually - if the riddle presentation is largely duplicative, then mark away. If not, not.

Rand al'Thor

15:47

@Rubio What do you reckon on the examples I linked to in the question? Should all those "nothing"/"coffin" dupes really be dupes? What about the "iron" ones?

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio Wordplay is agnostic as to which, so just what do you want to do with both that that won't do for?

GentlePurpleRain

@Rubio You may not have heard the word, but you have probably experienced it.

dcfyj

@GentlePurpleRain Haha, I forgot about that one (The "Ron" one)

GentlePurpleRain

@Rubio You can do a "double definition" clue, which simply contains 2 definitions: one for each meaning of the word.

Ankoganit

@GentlePurpleRain @Rubio A place for studying (7)

Rubio

15:49

Response overload ;)

Ankoganit

What do you say about holding clue writing contests in chat (say, a separate chatroom)?

Rubio

@Randal'Thor Part of my first paragraph was my actual thinking on what should constitute a dup. I expanded on it, making my thoughts on what IS (vs. just what ISN'T) a dup.

GentlePurpleRain

@Ankoganit How does "for" fit the clue? "A place", and "studying" are the 2 defs

Ankoganit

@GentlePurpleRain Just a linker?

GentlePurpleRain

I could be wrong, but I don't think that kind of linker is allowed... @Gareth?

Rubio

15:52

and I didn't really have a chance to look at the examples, but I suspect it's like the old commentary about pornography: i may not be able to exactly define what a duplicate is, but I know one when I see it ;)

Gareth McCaughan

I think "for" is OK as boundary twixt wordplay and df.

Rubio

@GentlePurpleRain Yeah I've experienced it. I know there's books written that way. I just never heard a word for it :)

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan This is double def though

Sid

@Rubio This: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void

Rubio

@Sid yah

Gareth McCaughan

15:53

@dcfyj But in a DD, "wordplay" is df #2.

GentlePurpleRain

@Ankoganit Also, I think "a place" might be a little to vague. It could literally define millions of things.

Gareth McCaughan

"town"?

Sid

@GentlePurpleRain A place in England?

Rubio

I assume the idea is LIBRARY but

GentlePurpleRain

@Sid The especially impressive thing about that is that it's translated from the French, while maintaining the same restrictions.

dcfyj

15:54

@GarethMcCaughan True I suppose

Rubio

wow that got mangled

Gareth McCaughan

(@GPR and @Rubio may want to look at all I've said today, btw. What do you (not) find?)

GentlePurpleRain

11 mins ago, by Rubio

if I want to clue a particular thing that itself has two meanings - say, "Reading" which is both a verb and a place - is there a way to clue both in a cryptic?

Gareth McCaughan

it's actually growing tiring

Rubio

gahh

@GarethMcCaughan Nice. You have too much time on your hands.

Gareth McCaughan

15:56

thanks!

It is odd that it wasn't caught by any but I...

Rubio

@GentlePurpleRain Yeah sorry my comment got mangled. I was trying to say I think the vagueness might just take you to LIBRARY instead

Gareth McCaughan

I thought it was obvious

but it looks as if it wasn't

GentlePurpleRain

Not at all.

Rubio

Chat makes some normally out-of-place constructions get overlooked.

GentlePurpleRain

I wasn't even sure what you were talking about after you mentioned it.

Gareth McCaughan

15:58

I was hoping to do my C.C.C.C. with that constraint but I think I will drop it first -- it truly is tiring.

GentlePurpleRain

I should have suspected that Gareth using abbreviations like df. in chat meant he was up to something. He's usually more verbose.

Gareth McCaughan

I'm sorry if I usually say too much.

GentlePurpleRain

@GarethMcCaughan I thought you'd already dropped it here (last letter). Or was that just a mistake?

2 mins ago, by Gareth McCaughan

It is odd that it wasn't caught by any but me...

Gareth McCaughan

oops, 'twas a cockup

will fix

Sid

0

A: French vs Italian resistance

Total number and diveded and multiplied

What's this answer?

Gareth McCaughan

15:59

damn, can't fix now -- too long post facto

obvious fix is to switch last word to "I"

dcfyj

Just have GPR fix it :P

Gareth McCaughan

ah, that works. If GPR is willing, thanks!

dcfyj

@Sid I'm not sure that qualifies as an answer

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Already flagged.

Rubio

I think this came before you started paying attention to this too, but meh :)

GentlePurpleRain

16:01

@GarethMcCaughan Done

Gareth McCaughan

ta!

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio I dunno if that's going to be good enough. I wanted to get a nice community consensus which I could act on.

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio what? It fits my constraint too, no? Did I slip up?

GentlePurpleRain

@Gareth I can fix that one too, if you tell me what to change.

"Enough"

Gareth McCaughan

aargh!

"that that won't do for". A bit ugly; sorry.

Sid

16:04

@GarethMcCaughan Let's just say that you haven't used "the" so far...

Rubio

@Sid Works for me :)

Gareth McCaughan

(OK, dropping the lipogrammetry now; there are things I can't find any non-painful way to say)

GentlePurpleRain

Fixed the "enough" one for you.

Gareth McCaughan

Much the best thing on that "French vs Italian resistance" question is someone's remark that of course M Oehm would be the one to solve it. I remark that this too involves omission of the letter E.

Rubio

Buahahaa. (And yeah that was my comment)

GentlePurpleRain

16:07

@Gareth It is hard not only to find words, but to avoid making mistakes. When I made my "Hearken now" puzzle, I had to use a computer to make sure I wasn't adding letters I wasn't supposed to.

Gareth McCaughan

Well, yes. I made two in the fairly brief discussion above.

(I haven't forgotten that I owe the assembled company another CCCC.)

GentlePurpleRain

I just recently learned about Charcoal HQ. They're running quite a sophisticated bot that scans every new post/comment/edit on the entire StackExchange network and checks for a variety of indicators that might mean it is spam. If it thinks it's found spam, it posts in that chat room, and a whole bunch of people flag it almost immediately.

Rand al'Thor

@GentlePurpleRain Not comments.

And not edits either, except in the sense that they can make posts into spam.

GentlePurpleRain

@Randal'Thor You're right about the comments; my mistake.

But from charcoal-se.org: "...every new post, on every SE site, plus every edit and other update..."

Rand al'Thor

@GentlePurpleRain Oh OK.

I guess they'd have to monitor edits (or newly edited posts) in order to catch things like self-vandalism.

Techidiot

16:23

@IAmInPLS- We posted a question almost at a same time! :D

Rubio

@Randal'Thor ok I think I tightened up a little more and made my thoughts more clear. also shifted part of my answer that was a reaction to "close on dup answer", to be a comment on that answer.

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Looks reasonable. Ideally I'd like something more objective than "some reasonably high threshold percentage of the hinting", but I realise that might be an unfeasible dream.

Rubio

38 mins ago, by Rubio

and I didn't really have a chance to look at the examples, but I suspect it's like the old commentary about pornography: i may not be able to exactly define what a duplicate is, but I know one when I see it ;)

I think there are some cases where trying to codify exactly what a thing is, ends up being a Bad Thing™ by tempting Rules Nazis to skirt the definition

Gareth McCaughan

16:44

CCCC: Father, studying the divine but ignoring the transcendental is a disorder (9)

Beastly Gerbil

Oooh, ok seems tricky

Rand al'Thor

"disorder" -> anagram?

Beastly Gerbil

Probably

Rubio

comment-pin that, someone

Beastly Gerbil

Need a mod

Lukas Rotter

16:48

Flag the comment :P

Rubio

lol

dcfyj

@LukasRotter I don't think that would go over well lol

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil At your service.

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor you just want to show off your mod abilities :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I'm a little distracted by solving @Techidiot's movie riddle and trying to work IRL.

Beastly Gerbil

16:54

Oh yeah saw your answer (+1). I'd only noticed 'fin' :P

Techidiot

@Randal'Thor- I think you won't be for long :)

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor About your comment on my puzzle: it is not tagged anagram for a reason, it is that there is no anagram!

Rand al'Thor

@Techidiot I think I've got the final answer, but still haven't worked out that second line. The capital letters in the last line don't seem to be significant (they're all at the beginnings of words, and those letters aren't in the final solution).

@IAmInPLS Damn, I thought I was onto something with north/thorn.

Techidiot

@Randal'Thor- Try a little more. I can see you approaching that GOLD BADGE very soon :)

Rand al'Thor

@Techidiot Do we need to transform SWEGMC into ALDEST, or find ALDEST in some completely different way?

Techidiot

17:04

@Randal'Thor I should keep mum on this :-|

Though I would say, stick to the tags. No decryption's required.

Rand al'Thor

Oh, huh, good point.

Walt is leading me up blind alleys in the M&TV chatroom :-P

in The Screening Room, 8 mins ago, by Walt

Seems that SWEGMC=ALDEST somehow, but I'm bad with codes :/

Oh, wait, I think I got it!

Techidiot

(*_-)

Rand al'Thor

There, I've reached my final destination.

Pun intended.

@Techidiot Just one issue: why "triad" and "septuplet"? I can't see how 3 or 7 are important to the solution.

Techidiot

@Randal'Thor - Triad were the first three letters. "FIN" Next 7 on the bottom "NALDEST"

Wanted to keep it a bit confusing there. Though good one! :)

Big green tick coming soon!

Rand al'Thor

@Techidiot OK ... I suppose that makes sense?

It just confused me a bit because both "triad" and "septuplet", appearing in the second line, seems to be relevant to the ALDEST bit.

Techidiot

17:13

Well, needed to keep it enigmatic. Hence that.

Beastly Gerbil

Well done Rand

Techidiot

F N O I T A N
I I
N A L D E S T

Oops. I can't add spaces

between I and I

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Thanks :-D

Beastly Gerbil

Aaah I see now.

Techidiot

So, that was it! If you want you can add the rectangle in your answer @Randal'Thor

Rand al'Thor

17:16

Damn chat formatting.

Beastly Gerbil

AK resurrected...

:P

Rand al'Thor

Well, I do have a Necromancer badge ...

Beastly Gerbil

And now @LukasRotter is joining in too!

dcfyj

The AK disease?

Techidiot

So, triads are "FIN" and last septuplets are "NALDEST"

Beastly Gerbil

17:19

Soon we'll all just be mindless, wandering, chat message deleting zombies going around saying 'Remooooovvvved'... :P

7

Lukas Rotter

The disease is spreading. We have to kill everyone who is infected to save humanity and prevent further spread.

Rubio

(removed)

Lukas Rotter

I knew this day would come.

Rubio

Don't get bitten.

Rand al'Thor

@Techidiot Added a rectangle to my answer.

Techidiot

17:24

@Randal'Thor- Looks better :)

Lukas Rotter

We now have to ask every chat-newbie the three TWD questions (slightly modified): "How many comments have you posted?", "How many comments have you removed?", "Why?".

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter That third one could be a problem.

The Prisoner - The General

►

Does @Levieux ever come in here?

I really like this puzzle. There are some things which are jumping out at me straight away, but I can't see how to put them all together.

Beastly Gerbil

no geography tag..

Rand al'Thor

17:43

Posted an answer. I'm very definitely onto something, but it's still a work in progress.

Gareth McCaughan

I'm also looking at it (haven't looked at your answer) and reckon I've got maybe 50-70% of what's going on

Rand al'Thor

Can I just say, this is a fantastic puzzle. Even though I haven't finished solving it yet, I love the multi-layeredness of it, the way different clues cue and confirm each other, and I think you've pitched the difficulty just right. — rand al'thor 14 secs ago

Gareth McCaughan

... namely, exactly the same as you've got, it turns out

Rand al'Thor

Remind me of this when the quarterly awards come up.

Gareth McCaughan

(I'll leave you to it, since apparently we're working at about the same speed and you've taken the trouble to write it up)

Lukas Rotter

17:46

winterbash2016.stackexchange.com

starts 2016/12/19

Rubio

CCCC: PATHOLOGY

PA (father), THEOLOGY (studying the divine), -E (ignoring the transcendental) -> PATHOLOGY (def)

I got that one minute into my shower. figures. :)

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio Spot on!

I'm rather pleased with the surface reading of that one.

Rand al'Thor

Oh wow, this is fun.

IAmInPLS

@Rubio Good job

Rand al'Thor

IIXY - Dn -> MIKE / MIKE / XRAY - Denmark

the heck

That was a tough one to reconstruct.

Sconibulus

17:56

Do all of these work as airports?

Rand al'Thor

Oh yes.

Everything is coming together very neatly.

That's actually how I found this one: hunting for airports in Sweden with an X in their IATA code.

MMX is Malmo apparently.

Sconibulus

what site are you using to check the codes?

I've had some stuff apparently fail to match

Rand al'Thor

Google and Wikipedia.

I'm not finding any IHV airport, but that probably just means I've filled in some letters wrong.

Rubio

@GarethMcCaughan Yeah the divine and transcendental was a nice bit of work

Rand al'Thor

Yep, it's actually IEV - I just guessed wrong when completing HO.

Rubio

18:07

I've read things not in Deusovi's guide that lead me to understand the following is legal.

CCCC: Following directions in middle of Middle, I was trapped between penniless fraction and strange shortened secretary's problem. (6,6)

Sconibulus

As an example, I had your Bravo Hotel Xray match coming up Birmingham, UK

Rand al'Thor

DSTGO - Uk -> INDIA / SIERRA / TANGO - Ukraine

Another tough one to fill in.

@Sconibulus Yes, so Kg could be United Kingdom, but that's an awful lot of new letters.

Sconibulus

it match IS, for Isreal for you

Rand al'Thor

TGOHOTE - Id ... wow, an entire word is missing on the left there.

Rubio

Kyrgyzstan

Rand al'Thor

18:12

And I'm pretty sure that I should be either i or l; I left a comment.

Rubio

"@randal'thor: you're right, I'll edit that. – Levieux"

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Yep, saw it.

durron597

@Randal'Thor TANGO / HOTEL - Finland

it's definitely finland because the next one is helsinki airport

Rand al'Thor

@durron597 No, it was ALFA / TANGO / HOTEL. See latest edit :-)

durron597

oy lol

that's funny because there's an airport THO in iceland that would make a lot of sense

Sid

18:18

Just the United Kingdom part, I guess...

But is that considered a country?

M Oehm

Okay, entering this discussion sideways, but I think the first Denmark is ALFA ROMEO NOVEMBER, which yields Arlanda airport in Stockholm

Rand al'Thor

Finished (the airports and countries).

@MOehm Already done :-)

Now we just need to work out what those numbers on the left mean.

Sid

And the 2016 part..

M Oehm

@Randal'Thor Okay, I'm slow, as always. :)

Sid

Make up something that leads to an airport in sweden..

Sconibulus

18:22

@Randal'Thor DELTA UNIFORM BRAVO for the first one, you need a T for United Kingdom

durron597

of course sweden has more than 60 airports with an IATA code

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Huh, yes, that would make more sense. A tiny airport in Guyana would be a bit of an outlier in this puzzle :-)

Rubio

it's possible the A.B number tells which airport

Sconibulus

could the numbers be a unit of distance?

no, never mind

Rubio

Yah doesn't seem like it. Also not related to number of terminals / runways / airlines served.

Running out of things to try :)

Rand al'Thor

18:39

OK, so now we need an airport in Sweden and possibly "Ireland" on the right to complete the loop.

Sconibulus

Should it be a loop?

Rand al'Thor

I dunno, but what other clue do we have for the country at the end?

Sconibulus

We don't know what the numbers are for yet

Rand al'Thor

They're all between 0 and 8.

I'm thinking it must be something to do with letters.

Since, well, everything else is.

Sid

Out of topic- Was there any bounty on the Rube Wordberg problem?

I mean, earlier..

Sconibulus

18:44

the country cued the next letters, maybe the numbers cue the next country somehow? Of course, then we'd still not know what numbers went with the message, unless there's a pattern made out of flight paths or something

Oh... I know what the last country is...

Ukraine, it's related to Eurovision

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Aww, you'll spoil @Alconja's votes-to-views ratio.

Sconibulus

which means the airport should probably be Stockholm

Rubio

Man .... that votes:views ratio is pretty insane isn't it :)

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Oh good lord.

Thanks though.

Shall I add that to my answer, or do you want to post your own?

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

71

Q: The Rube Wordberg Machine

Gah! I used to be the brilliant one at Verba Retorta University, but ever since that damned Professor Wordberg showed up, there's been nothing but trouble. And it's all his confounded machine's fault! He's a fraud – he has to be – I just needed enough evidence to prove it. So, last night, I... L...

word visual

Beastly Gerbil

18:57

Wait Rube Wordberg only got 837 views!??

Sconibulus

I can post a bit, but we still don't have any idea what the numbers are

M Oehm

It was said that all numbers are from 0 to 8, but the first numbers are from 0 to 5 and the numbers after the dot are all even digits. So the numbers go from 0.6 to 5.8 in steps of 0.2.

Rubio

they're not scores are they?

Sconibulus

they don't match with either the total score, or the margin of victory

they might match with something else, but it isn't broken down on wikipedia :)

M Oehm

The official ESC site isn't great for data mining either.

Deusovi

19:42

@GarethMcCaughan Yep! I actually wrote that one for an English paper - the assignment was "3 pages, any topic, never use the letter A".

As for Gareth's clue, I'm thinking "ignoring the transcendental" means "remove the letter E".

Sconibulus

I think it got solved

Deusovi

Oh, did it?

No, don't think it did.

Oh.

dcfyj

It did, the answer was PATHOLOGY

Rand al'Thor

2 hours ago, by Rubio

PA (father), THEOLOGY (studying the divine), -E (ignoring the transcendental) -> PATHOLOGY (def)

dcfyj

Rubio got it as I recall

Deusovi

19:48

Ah, nice.

Sconibulus

oh, I hadn't seen that Rubio had posted a new one

Deusovi

Well, that one looks complicated.

dcfyj

I hadn't noticed that Rubio's had 2 words

Deusovi

Still, fantastic clue, @GarethMcCaughan! The surface reading was great.

Beastly Gerbil

Ah Rubios posted a new one...

Deusovi

20:03

Yeah, and it's a long one.

Beastly Gerbil

two words as well

By the time I finish reading this, I will not only have fallen asleep, I will also have grown a beard, mustache and hair so long I won't be able to see the screen... — Beastly Gerbil 2 mins ago

:P

That was for this

Deusovi

@BeastlyGerbil: Spacetime is a word. You didn't need to "correct" that one. (The rest of your edit was good though.)

Beastly Gerbil

Oh @Deusovi it came up as incorrect with spell check, so I assumed it was incorrect...

Mithrandir

22:15

Why is the Google Doodle guy picking his nose?

@Randal'Thor Remember this?

Aug 30 at 1:34, by Rand al'Thor

I did a quick double take when I saw that 211k. "Is Mithrandir secretly Jon Skeet?"

Well, now your thingy on Literature says One million. O_O

2

Lukas Rotter

@Mithrandir Not sure what you mean because nothing special appears for me, but IIRC you live in India and therefore it's the 7th of December, so I assume you see this? If so, I think it's representing him touching his chin (thinking motion).

Mithrandir

Not in India. But yeah, it's 12:20 now.

And yeah, I know, but it's more fun thinking of it as him picking his nose.

Transcript for