The Sphinx's Lair

Techidiot

19:00

@Rubio - Nailed it!

Rubio

I saw your updated Hint

which makes a little more sense, as I can't make any real sense of line 3

I don't think I'm going to figure out what exactly you were going with there

Techidiot

Ok . Let me tell you that.. Had A neeless lane

Letter A is needless

So its Had+Lane

Now read the complete line

We were fabricated by some type, and that type had a needless lane.

Fabricated-> invented by

Type-> Human(synonym)

Hadane -> Haldane

Rubio

um. no. just, no.

That kind of twisty complicated wordplay nobody would ever be able to get unhinted.

Techidiot

Though again, it doesnt restrict finding the answer

Rubio

Type and human are not synonyms, just for starters

Techidiot

19:04

a person or thing exemplifying the ideal or defining characteristics of something

Rubio

getting to "Haldane" from "type had a needless lane", no way.

Techidiot

Thats what google shows

Rubio

yeah, but you can't just chop all those words out and reduce it to "person"

Techidiot

Yeah. Well but that was not important. That was a little part

Rest of the rhyme was too easy to figure out

I guess it nicely describes clones. Doesn't it?

Rubio

Dude

The rest of the rhyme was not at all easy to figure out

that's why it took a week, 17 answers, a bounty, and an actual hint to get anywhere on it

Techidiot

19:08

I mean once some one gets the answer :)

It gives an Aha moment

Was it bad @Rubio?

We might look unvaried, we were meant to be. But it's just fine.

Rubio

It was pretty bad, to be honest.

Techidiot

Unvaried = sMe

Same

Clones are meant to be similar

Rubio

There's a lot of cruft there to make it rhyme, and it's hard determining what bits are important and which aren't

Techidiot

I am not sure why you have added star wars stuff in there. The answer atm looks too trivial

Rubio

Finding the duplicated words is entirely straightforward, of course

Techidiot

19:13

I will explain each line right now..

Rubio

Figuring out you are hinting at clones, when there's very little unobfuscated stuff that points specifically that way, makes it feel too broad even though every incorrect answer is demonstrably lacking. because even the correct answer to me felt unsatisfying on a couple of the lines.

Techidiot

Let us tell you a story about nothing but us

Self explanatory

Unbleached sometimes, sometimes not, that's what they discuss!

Clones can be naturally produced like twins or can be artificial using cloning

We were fabricated by some type, and that type had a needless lane.

Lets skip this one..

Magical we might be, the future probably, we shall never go in vain!

Sconibulus

'unbleached'?

Rubio

Right. (By the way, "unbleached" is a poor hint there, as you don't bleach clones; except that you have wordplay which makes it fine; except that you then said only line 3 is wordplay...)

Sconibulus

why couldn't a clone go in vain?

Rubio

19:17

because other than by magic, they're hard to make, take time to grow, and are resource intensive to develop

Techidiot

googleweblight.com/?lite_url=http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/…

Unbleached is added as a synonym in thesarus

For natural

Rubio

heh. So, you can't just cherry-pick. Words have meaning but only in certain contexts.

I don't have a quibble with "Unbleached sometimes". I have one with "sometimes not".

Techidiot

Well.. people figure out way difficult ones here

Rubio

Unbleached means natural in that it contrasts Bleached meaning artificial, in reference to colors.

Just because it can be figured out (I mean, I just did) doesn't mean it's right. Or good.

Techidiot

One of us resides in each line here. Yes, every single line. Top to the bottom. We can't deny.

This speaks eveeything

Rubio

19:20

I'll bash on my own most recent C4, which was demonstrably wrong. It was solved, but that doesn't justify the errors ;)

Techidiot

Repeat was not correct. And the other words could have been twins, pairs etc which didnt fit the size

Rubio

So yeah; that line, literally ⅔ of it is fluff. The "We can't deny." is completely gratuitous, just there for the rhyme

It's fine to put it there. it just makes a rather unobvious riddle even more unobvious. nothing wrong with that, but you should keep that in mind when making riddles; gratuitous additional stuff isn't obvious to the solver, and makes the riddle harder.

Techidiot

If you try finding something in every word, you will never get the meaning right? :)

I thought useless stuff should be avoided only with cryptic clues. Isnt it right?

Deusovi

Hey everyone!

Techidiot

How can we keep every single word pointing to the answer and yet making it difficult. Phewww...

Rubio

19:24

Well, yeah. Just saying - keep in mind too that if you do that on every line, you make it unsolvable, even though with the right solution you could easily separate the relevant from the distraction and demonstrate that the riddle is still valid. but that's much easier to do in reverse than not.

Deusovi

Well, generally useless information is a bad thing.

Rubio

In a riddle, especially a rhyming one, some noise is expected. But it should be kept to the minimum. That's all I'm saying.

GentlePurpleRain

@Deusovi Any more thoughts on Gareth's Cryptic Clue?

Deusovi

Apart from what everyone else has said (anagram of ANYTHATHERMIONEANDWILLOW), nothing.

GentlePurpleRain

I'm trying to figure out any other meaning than the already-suggested anagram, but I don't see any other possibilities for wordplay.

Deusovi

19:27

Yeah, plus such a long phrase with a relatively short clue wouldn't have many other options.

Techidiot

@Rubio- I was going with "type had lane" but thought it would be a give away and not grammatically correct

When google searched had lane I was getting haldane effect :p

Rubio

why would anyone google "had lane"?

Techidiot

Hope it was better than the century one.. :p

But well, noted your advise. Thanks.

Rubio

It was. ;)

Techidiot

Not sure. I imagine people here as superhumans

:)

Rubio

19:30

The size line, what was your intention there?

Techidiot

Though it caught many :(

Well that was another hint.. to avoid making it too broad with lots of answers

Only the first and the last answer went closest :)

Also as you rightly figured out, plurals were used on purpose

And the hint told the same story again

GentlePurpleRain

@Techidiot No matter how superhuman, people can't read your mind. There are many people here capable of solving very difficult puzzles, but difficult does not mean "following obscure trains of thought and vague associations."

4

Rubio

^^ +1

Deusovi

^

Rubio

I mean, even knowing the answer I still don't know what you meant by line 6.

GentlePurpleRain

19:36

Good, difficult puzzles have indicators that a solver is on the right track and contain sufficient information to solve without having to guess at what the puzzle creator was thinking.

Techidiot

@GentlePurpleRain- Agreed. But reading my mind was required only in one of the line.

Don't you ask us our size. If you do, we won't lie!

Rubio

Oops. I meant to put Haldane (hence "commingled") but typoded it :) thanks, fixed.

Techidiot

Are clones individually a question, they wont dare to lie as they might get caught answering differently

dcfyj

@Deusovi Wouldn't that be called a red herring? :P

Deusovi

Yes. And IMO red herrings are a bad thing.

Techidiot

19:37

And a red herring as well

Rubio

Clones .... don't work that way :)

dcfyj

@Deusovi did you see my latest? (already solved) It had 4 cryptics in it ^^

Techidiot

I will need a riddle and rhyme guideline :)

Rubio

Ok whatever. I'm just glad it's solved

Deusovi

Nope, mind linking me?

dcfyj

19:39

3

Q: Cryptic Encryption

This is fairly simple. Solve the 3 cryptics here to know how the 4th was encrypted. Once you've done that, solve the 4th and that's the answer to this little puzzle. Proclaim hazily, "dear cel"!(7) Indiana and Delaware hanging free. (11) Triumvirates of excursion permits(8) 1 1 1 1 3 2 1 ...

Techidiot

I am glad too!! :)

I hope you get your bounty soon! ;)

dcfyj

I only mention it to you since you seem to enjoy solving cryptics

Deusovi

Oh cool!

No, really? :P

dcfyj

:P

Deusovi

Speaking of which...

0

Q: Plenty of Clues in the Crossword

This is a variety cryptic. Each clue or answer will be modified in one of four ways: ONE CLUE: These clues are lonely. TWO CLUE: These clues are twins - they have a bit of an identity crisis. RED CLUE: These clues are communists - they love sharing specific parts of themselves with oth...

wordplay cryptic-crosswords

Rubio

19:41

Lol. One clue, two clue, red clue, blue clue. I love it.

Deusovi

:D

And of course, there's the grid.

Rubio

And, of course, ...

yeah. Shaped like the fish.

You're my hero for the day.

Deusovi

Aw, thanks.

Rubio

+1 just for that stuff.

Deusovi

Sorry about the asymmetry, by the way. The answers were even more constrained than usual (you'll see why once you solve).

Sphinx

19:43

2

Q: Plenty of Clues in the Crossword

This is a variety cryptic. Each clue or answer will be modified in one of four ways: ONE CLUE: These clues are lonely. TWO CLUE: These clues are twins - they have a bit of an identity crisis. RED CLUE: These clues are communists - they love sharing specific parts of themselves with oth...

wordplay cryptic-crosswords animals

Rubio

You should have arranged it so the heavy lines formed fins and an eye and mouth.

I'm very disappointed.

:)

Get on that.

Techidiot

@Rubio- Even the title has a clone FYI :)

Rubio

Duh. Yeah, I meant to put that in there

Deusovi

I actually considered putting in a black square for the eye around where square 25 is! Decided against it though.

dcfyj

By the way, is my fourth cryptic valid? (it's in Gareth's answer)

Deusovi

19:44

Yeah!

dcfyj

I thought so, but I wasn't sure since I was using 2 sentences

Deusovi

Nothing wrong with that.

Rubio

@Techidiot I finally got the right answer in the shower btw. I knew the title also fit the pattern but forgot to include it when I finally got out and wrote it up. :)

Deusovi

14A, 35A, 39A, 5D, and 38D use two sentences in my newest one.

dcfyj

Not that I'll be keeping track, but I've now written 5 cryptics ^^

Deusovi

19:47

I've written way too many! :D

dcfyj

And my first was a C4!

Techidiot

@Rubio Haha :D

Deusovi

That's where I came up with the idea for this one :P

dcfyj

The shower? or C4?

Gareth McCaughan

@Deusovi That looks pretty tough.

Deusovi

19:48

The shower.

Gareth! :D

dcfyj

Hehe, you just made me think of a great answer to a puzzle. Now I just have to build around it

Gareth McCaughan

@Deusovi Do you have any objection to my editing your puzzle to say that 44/4=11 to save solvers the trouble of counting how many clues there are? :-)

Deusovi

Go ahead

Techidiot

@Rubio- You may need another shower to think about this puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/46683/…

:)

dcfyj

@Deusovi Dan Russell is on the prowl

Rubio

19:53

@Techidiot I'm giving that one a pass. It feels like it's got too much of the kind of obscure unhinted stuff that made the Clones one so difficult to solve.

Besides, I'm rooting for the arrow answer, which was amazing and really should be it :)

(I'm tempted to tell you to tweak your riddle if his answer is wrong, because I really can't find a flaw in it)

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan If you take blue clue to mean don't repeat letters then 40a isn't one of them as that makes it too short AS(s)I(s)T

Gareth McCaughan

I took it to mean suppressing at least one repetition. Maybe.

@Rubio I think the "melody admirer" thing is too indirect in the "arrow" answer, ingenious though it is.

Deusovi

Hey @IAmInPLS! New puzzle :D

dcfyj

Don't do it! It's a trap!

IAmInPLS

20:09

Yes, and a nice one what is more! I have to give you an upvote

There it is :)!

Too bad I am very lame at cryptic clues

Sconibulus

When making a grid logic puzzle, how do you know how many clues you can take away?

Deusovi

By testsolving.

dcfyj

Is it still solvable without leaps of logic

Deusovi

Or programming. Whatever you prefer. (Just keep in mind that a computer-solvable puzzle is not always human-solvable, or at least human-solvable in an enjoyable way.)

Sphinx

0

Q: Patterns and why they repeat

The squares on a 6x6 chess board are colored black and white. When examining all of the 2x2 blocks of squares that make the chess board, it turns out that at least one 2x2 pattern has to be repeated somewhere on the board....why?

mathematics combinatorics

Rubio

20:11

VTC math problem?

Sconibulus

yeah, I think so

Deusovi

Actually, yeah, that would probably be best. I was on the fence about it (and didn't want to unilaterally close).

Puzzling Meta

21:24

1

Q: Nominate additional Room Owners for The Sphinx's Lair

Your friendly neighbourhood moderators are fairly active in chat in The Sphinx's Lair, but we realize that we can only do so much. We would like to add some new room owners, who will inherit certain privileges to help with moderation of The Sphinx's Lair. A room owner has the following privileg...

discussion featured election chat user-poll

Display name

Um... Do we really need more room owners? Everything seems to run pretty smoothly here IMO. (certain events with certain users were also handled correctly). I obviously can't speak for the room owners, but is there really so much to do that we need more than three?

Sconibulus

Having more room owners doesn't really hurt anything, chat is much more active than it used to be

(well, except that room owners can edit other people's messages, so you need to trust them)

or, maybe that's a mod only thing

Display name

Edit history is visible to everyone, so I think they wouldn't get far with that :D

Sconibulus

mostly room owners could help keep the right CCCC pinned, and could handle exceptions when mods are asleep

GentlePurpleRain

@Sconibulus That's only mods. See the list of privileges in the meta post above.

Volatility

21:33

Yikes, that's an interesting CCCC

GentlePurpleRain

@Volatility Isn't it, though? :)

Display name

@GentlePurpleRain How long will the nomination phase last? (or when will the new room owners officially be announced?)

GentlePurpleRain

@Displayname There is no set time. I'm assume that voting on the options will die down at some point, and that a certain number of people will be clear choices. If we need to set a deadline, we can, but I figured we would just give it sufficient time and then see who is most popular with the community.

Gareth McCaughan

@GentlePurpleRain I like what you did with the example.

GentlePurpleRain

@GarethMcCaughan I figured I'd have a little fun.

Gareth McCaughan

21:39

(Of course it was obvious where it was going as soon as I saw the name of the nominee.)

What time zones are the existing mods in?

@Volatility Just out of curiosity, does your name reflect an interest in chemistry, finance, or something else?

Volatility

Umm, no. It just happened to be the first word that came to my head. Actually, I dislike both chemistry and finance :P.

Gareth McCaughan

Fair enough!

GentlePurpleRain

@GarethMcCaughan The mods' time zones span the Americas pretty effectively, but not the rest of the world.

Sconibulus

Do No Harm, Then We Ally In Wait?

Gareth McCaughan

So maybe we want one in Europe and one in Asia.

"ally in wait?" Hmmm.

GentlePurpleRain

21:45

@Sconibulus I was looking at "do no harm" too, but the rest is kind of sketchy...

Gareth McCaughan

Perhaps doing no harm, then allying in wait is a bit like waiting in an alley, then doing harm.

GentlePurpleRain

@GarethMcCaughan It may help, but people are on at such strange hours that that's probably not the most important consideration.

Display name

This seems to suggest that one of the owners is always active except in a certain time span (presumably around UTC 12:00)

Gareth McCaughan

I doubt there's any single dominant consideration. But getting a reasonable spread of hours seems like not a bad idea. (Not necessarily 24h coverage; if there are scarcely any users active at a particular time there's no need for room owners to be around then either.)

Sconibulus

@Displayname where are you seeing that?

Gareth McCaughan

21:47

@Displayname That seems like evidence that we could do with someone not too far from Europe.

Display name

@Sconibulus The graphs in the section "Owners of this room"

GentlePurpleRain

@Sconibulus Look at the graph of active time on each mod's graphic.

Sconibulus

oh, hmm

I hadn't seen that

Deusovi apparently has a very broad posting window

Gareth McCaughan

yup, but the same big gap in the middle as the other mods.

Display name

And Rubio apparently posts 24/7

Gareth McCaughan

21:51

Yup. Though he seems to have a dip in that same place.

(but a dip rather than a gap)

Sconibulus

It looks like Rubio is winding down right as you are picking up

Display name

That may just be because less users are active at that particular time, but I don't know

Rubio

I'm just random. :)

But yeah, I think some of the time gaps are because there's nothing happening to respond to

Sconibulus

coincidentally, you two were who I was considering nominating, if you've no objections

Display name

So now that we have determined when certain users sleep / don't sleep: Who would actually be a good nominee (in terms of behaviour, "qualification", etc.)?

Rubio

21:56

I wouldn't object. I defer to the will of the community. :)

Sconibulus

@Displayname Oh, hey, you changed your name!

I was wondering why I hadn't seen you in a while

very tricksy

Rubio

Friends, Sphinxians, community, lend me your ears... luke here now... I tells ya, that @Displayname feller, i do declahre, be rottern to the core.

6

Display name

@Sconibulus Yeah. I just wanted to make sure to have an interesting reaction to this, and decided to walk the walk, not just talk the talk :P (although I didn't actually say anything about changing my name, I just decided I had to stick with it now... for the rest of my PSE life)

Rubio

So... you're indirectly blaming this all on me?

I can live with that.

GentlePurpleRain

If we were to create a Community Wiki post that aggregates all the CCCCs posted in chat, do you think it would be more appropriate on main or meta? (Or not at all?)

Sconibulus

22:05

I think probably not at all...

Display name

@Rubio LOL. Yeah, I'd also blame you if I decided to murder someone because you told me one of my PSE questions was downvoted.

Sconibulus

I wouldn't mind a collection of the best ones, but all of them would probably get very big very fast

GentlePurpleRain

@Sconibulus But how would you decide which were the "best"?

Rubio

@Displayname Lol. I don't remember any such thing, but I'll take your word for it.

Sconibulus

I imagine they'd be the ones at least one person thought was worthy of editing into the Showcase post

Rubio

22:08

@GentlePurpleRain Give (the participants | the room owners | the mods | some other random cabal) each a vote, simple majority wins.

Deusovi

@Sconibulus The trick is to not sleep ever!

Display name

Now would be the perfect time for a little chat-bet about who'll be the next room owner ;)

GentlePurpleRain

@Rubio But then you first need a meta post where people can vote on each one, and a separate aggregate post. Or maybe they could be one and the same...

@Displayname How about who will be the first nominee?

I guess that's too easy to influence...

Gareth McCaughan

@Sconibulus I have no objection to being nominated. I will be happy to do it if chosen and unbothered if not.

Sconibulus

I'll write them up, probably this evening (U.S) if nobody's beaten me to it

Display name

22:16

Someone eloquent should post a nomination for AK as the next room owner.

Alconja

Let's not and say we did

3

Gareth McCaughan

@DanRussell I just added 6d to your crossword answer and added notes on the ones that have no ordinary definition. My apologies if you're around and active -- I'd thought you were AFK for a bit.

Volatility

6D (ODE) crosses with 10A (ASSAD), possibly a way to figure out the gimmick?

Gareth McCaughan

Possibly. It's kinda hard to see how it's going to work, actually. Maybe everything will become more obvious as we solve more clues.

Dan Russell

@GarethMcCaughan Thanks. Off to grab the kids. Just peeking in.

Volatility

22:29

29A probably ON FEET rather than ON FOOT?

Deusovi

I can confirm that you all have solved at least one clue of each type.

And all the answers currently there are correct.

Volatility

oh ok, nvm ;-)

Gareth McCaughan

ON FOOT is a standard phrase and ON FEET really isn't

Rubio

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
foot
[...]
10: (prosody) a group of 2 or 3 syllables forming the basic unit
of poetic rhythm [syn: {metrical foot}, {foot}, {metrical
unit}]

Deusovi

It's fun watching you all try to figure out the gimmicks :D

(Whoops, just noticed an error in a clue. Edited to fix it.)

Gareth McCaughan

22:47

yes, a foot is a unit of poetic metre, but "foot" doesn't mean "poetic metre". Just as a letter is a unit used to build up words, but "letter" doesn't mean "words".

Deusovi

yeah, that was probably a bad clue

sorry about that!

Gareth McCaughan

's OK, these things happen

Volatility

If I've found a solution, should I post it here or in the comments? (don't have enough rep to edit without needing to be approved)

Deusovi

A solution to what?

Volatility

a clue

Deusovi

22:52

Oh, a clue? If you suggest an edit, we can approve it

Volatility

ok

Deusovi

Or just post it here. Up to you

Don't worry Gareth, I didn't resort to indirect anagrams :P

Gareth McCaughan

ah, OK

Deusovi

Yeah, you know my stance on those.

Volatility

Umm, looks like I overwrote Gareth's edit, sorry about that

19D crosses with 29A (and 35A, although we don't know whether we have the whole solution for that one)

Sphinx

23:08

0

Q: A cube with colors

There's a word encrypted in this mysterious cube. Can you find out what it says? (I still need to figure out how to do the 3D stuff and will update the question as soon as possible.)

three-dimensional

TheGreatEscaper

23:26

That's an interesting one...

incesterror21

Glad you like it

I'm not sure how hard it will be

I even added colors to make it easier to keep track of where you are

TheGreatEscaper

It's a rotating maze, right?

incesterror21

What's a rotating maze?

TheGreatEscaper

That's probably a no, then...

As in, is it some sort of maze

And does the solution involve rotating the layers

incesterror21

Ah, I see. Rotating the layers is not required. But nice idea! Maybe I'll use that next time.

TheGreatEscaper

23:31

Interesting!

incesterror21

I think a rotating maze without any 3D support would be too hard, don't you think?

TheGreatEscaper

Yeah, that's what I was thinking

I wanted to double check if it was a rotating one or not

(i.e. whether I could be bothered trying to solve your puzzle!) :P

Thoughts so far: each side probably corresponds to a letter

incesterror21

Interesting!

TheGreatEscaper

It's probably a pathfinding puzzle - the shape of the path through each side probably makes the shape of a letter?

I'm trying to find a signpost for a goal

There's no 'start' or 'finish'...

incesterror21

How mysterious!

TheGreatEscaper

23:35

There are way more lines going 'up' a layer than lines going 'down' a layer, so we aren't looking for any sort of loop either

Unless the loop doesn't pass through every line segment, in which case we need a signpost anyways for what loop is 'correct'

As it stands right now there's a loop running through red-pink-yellow

So the top face doesn't seem to have much importance

incesterror21

media4.giphy.com/media/OETfmEkjThZLy/200.gif#10

TheGreatEscaper

I just need to find some signpost of importance... the colours are seemingly arbitrary, since you've stated yourself they're for 'keeping track of where you are' - that statement also implies my suspicion that this is a pathfinding puzzle is correct

Rubio

Huh. I just assumed the layers DID rotate. I was halfway through transcribing them to a text visualization so I could start playing with that.

TheGreatEscaper

Maybe i should stop looking for a signpost

Sconibulus

I have an idea, but it's difficult to test

at least for me without the 3d version

TheGreatEscaper

23:40

Is there any way to transform this into a traversable thing?

There are too many disjoints. That's why I first thought the layers could rotate - that allows all the disjoints to match up with other things

Sconibulus

but I notice that pretty much all of the 'dead' ends end in purple, and the purple on the topmost layer could be an N or Z

I think the Purple wires join up hidden to make letters

TheGreatEscaper

Ahhhhh, nice idea.

I noticed the purples, but assumed it was some sort of graphical rendering thing?

But that makes a lot of sense now

and explains why each layer is bevelled

Also, top layer is more likely S, since N and Z are the wrong orientation

Hmmm...

The first layer underneath the top has only 4 dead ends into it

Sconibulus

oriented as if looking from the apparently undecorated face doesn't seem implausible

but I need to go make then eat dinner

TheGreatEscaper

I think you're onto something

I missed the obvious signpost which was that all dead ends go up

I noticed there were too many going up for all the paths to be unhidden

But didn't make the leap to the hidden purple paths

i seem to have gotten STV or STA as my first 3 letters

I'm still not sure on how we should join the purple lines

I'll try to make a loop

that goes through every line segment

This is definitely the right line of thought, the dead ends only go up, and there's an even number on each layer, so we can pair them up with purple lines

Gareth McCaughan

If you assume (1) there's a single loop that (2) never crosses itself, then you can quickly find what has to happen on the first two hidden layers. After that it's less obvious.

(at least to me, so far)

TheGreatEscaper

23:48

I have a feeling the purple lines do cross...

Otherwise the first layer doesn't really give you anything useful

I'll solve it under your rules

Give me a few mins

Rubio

@incesterror21 That gif. lol.

i'm just watching it. it's mesmerizing.

TheGreatEscaper

Done

(well, not done)

But the no lines crossing thing and a single loop gives you two solutions

neither of which are particularly enlightening

Gareth McCaughan

you're quicker than me

TheGreatEscaper

i just turned it into a graph

i don't think this solution is helpful

Gareth McCaughan

me too

TheGreatEscaper

23:56

do you want me to send an image?

Gareth McCaughan

(but trying to keep a bit of the geometry in case it was informative, which may be why slower)

no need for an image

TheGreatEscaper

i kept the geometry of the hidden faces and that's it

i.e. positioning of the entrances

the reason why i initially thought non-intersecting isn't very helpful (and is also why these solutions aren't helpful) is because then the topology of the hidden faces is very boring

Gareth McCaughan

yes

but I thought maybe they overlay one another in some informative way or something

though there isn't much scope for even that to "say" much

TheGreatEscaper

doesn't seem useful from my diagram

I'm pretty sure the bottom face is actually a 'K'

the positioning of the entrances on that layer is pretty distinctive

but K involves crossings

Gareth McCaughan

I see what you mean

TheGreatEscaper

23:59

the problem is, without crossings, there are 2 solutions

with crossings, there are a lot.

Gareth McCaughan

yup

there must be some further constraint that we are failing to see the need for

Transcript for