The Sphinx's Lair

I just got an interesting Christmas card from my cousin, with a very strange front. Hey Sconibulus, I heard you liked puzzles so I thought you might have fun with this, the shopkeep guy said something about making circles around the numbers to get a hidden message for your campus square? ...

Matt

sigh

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor did you find why clues yet?

Rubio

group D: THIN OUT, POINT OUT, UP and OUT, keep your NOSE OUT, SHORT OUT, stick your NECK OUT ... ?!

Mithrandir

5:12 PM

X

You mentioned the correct word ^there, though

Rubio

huh.

Techidiot

KEEP? :p

Rubio

stick thin, stick point, stick up, stick your nose into ... , stick out,

stick your neck out

Mithrandir

@Techidiot X

@Rubio _/

Techidiot

COol

Mithrandir

5:14 PM

@Randal'Thor ^

And I expect feedback when this is over, remember.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Again, haven't even looked at it again.

@Mithrandir Expect all you want - doesn't mean you'll get it :-P

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor You're too busy.

@Randal'Thor raises eyebrow

Rand al'Thor

Maybe if you give me a bounty ;-)

Mithrandir

I already started one today

Rand al'Thor

@Sphinx You're slow.

Techidiot

5:17 PM

@Rubio FYI, @ChrisCudmore came way too close.. ;) Should have posted a partial sol'n

Rubio

I apparently missed it then

Not surprising. Chat's been so active today :)

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Edited again.

@Mithrandir You can start up to three at the same time.

Techidiot

Oh, no. You didn't missed it

Mithrandir

I know

DOn't want to give that much rep away at the same time :P

@Randal'Thor Progress report?

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir All done except F6, I think.

Still no idea how to approach that one.

And I suspect I don't even have the knowledge required to solve it.

It looks like something computery.

Mithrandir

5:21 PM

Rot13 is outdated.

Rubio

i'm gonna guess it's KNEE

i tried rot42 but got nothing

Mithrandir

+5

Sid

Good evening, M Oehm.. Nice work on Puzzling SE puzzle..

Rubio

yah @MOehm, great job

Mithrandir

@Rubio Not KNEE. Try adding 5.

Techidiot

5:23 PM

7

Q: What is a Visionary Phrase™?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series inaugurated by JLee with his original Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a phrase adheres to a certain rule, then I call it a Visionary Phrase™. Use the examples below to find the rule. In case you want it in CSV: VISIONARY PHRASES, ...

pattern word-property

This was awesome.

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Could be many different body parts to fit with the final answer of BONE.

Rubio

heh. I didn't know that was a thing.

Rand al'Thor

The Prisoner: "Dry Bones," as Heard in "Fall Out"

►

Khale_Kitha

I have "Dem Bones" stuck in my head, from all of this, personally..

Sid

@Techidiot Is your cipher vigenere?

Techidiot

5:26 PM

@Sid Yes. Unless specified somewhere, it's vig.

Khale_Kitha

I almost feel like it should have been "Drunk Phrases" instead of Not visionary =D

Rubio

hehee

I'm so very confused now. "qbg4 ulcura2qbg2 crevbq1 qbg3yvar4" didn't help me much.

Mithrandir

Ah...

But it's removed one stage.

Unfortunately, I don't remember how I did this one... o_o

Rubio

yeah I'm trying to get to the next.

Khale_Kitha

@Rubio Pokes the black piece of connect-the-dot paper, to see if hints fall out.

Rubio

5:29 PM

@Khale_Kitha hahahaaa

Mithrandir

AH right.

Rubio

I'll be posting a hint in a bit, actually

Mithrandir

Now I remember. :P

Khale_Kitha

I have to take notes on all of my puzzles or I risk forgetting how to solve them...

Rubio

Well... it isn't vigenere'd with "clues" again ;)

Techidiot

5:30 PM

Khale_Kitha

Then again, my memory is often like 15 seconds long

Techidiot

I left it here @Rubio Is that the answer? :p

Khale_Kitha

lol

Techidiot

Though atleast one of them should have touched the bottom left :D

Rand al'Thor

Dec 13 '16 at 21:20, by Display name

The Good (Lukas Rot26), The Bad (Lukas Rot13), And The Ugly (Lukas Rot47) :P

I dunno what Rot47 is, but maybe it's what we need for F6?

Rubio

5:31 PM

yes

@Randal'Thor it gives "qbg4 ulcura2qbg2 crevbq1 qbg3yvar4"

@Techidiot Not even remotely is that the answer :)

Techidiot

Yeah... I don't even have an explanation for any of those segments :p

Khale_Kitha

Same

Mithrandir

I wrote down most of this puzzle. Just not the last bits :P

It's fairly straightforwards now.

Khale_Kitha

straigh1forwar3 - keeping that here.

lol

M Oehm

@Rubio Thanks. I had just popped in and out. Now I'm popping in again, because I've seen the update to your answer to Mithrandir's long question.

Khale_Kitha

5:38 PM

Trying to figure out what Tomas has to do with anything, Rubio

Mithrandir

@Khale_Kitha The 39 Clues. Not relevant now.

Rand al'Thor

Progressive, not against war with the western Donald (7).

^ Politics or cryptic clue?

Khale_Kitha

Ah - you mentioned a clue for F6 in the edit, but nothing else was there, that I'd seen

k

Mithrandir

There is something else

Khale_Kitha

@Randal'Thor Sounds like a crossword clue for a politician, lol

Matt

5:39 PM

2 upvotes and the bounty on the visionary answer, and I'll be at 5k rep for PSE :D

Khale_Kitha

close, also

Rand al'Thor

@Khale_Kitha Ah, but what's the solution? :-)

Khale_Kitha

Hadn't even considered it, yet, lol

Rand al'Thor

(I know it's not my turn for the CCCC, but this just popped into my head.)

Khale_Kitha

I can't remember what 'not' triggers for the CC

Sid

5:41 PM

@Randal'Thor What's the answer to that?

Rand al'Thor

@Sid I could tell you, but then I'd have to impeach you.

Rubio

@Randal'Thor FORWARD

I like it

Khale_Kitha

western Donald == D?

Rubio

And I'd say it's "both"

@Khale_Kitha yes

Khale_Kitha

ah, kk

Sid

5:43 PM

I was thinking western Donald was "Don"

Khale_Kitha

I was thinking he'd screw with us and refer to Donald Duck

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Good job!

Rubio

it's: FORWARD: Progressive (def.); not against→FOR; war (lit. WAR); with (...) the western Donald→D

Rand al'Thor

KK inspired me:

8 mins ago, by Khale_Kitha

straigh1forwar3 - keeping that here.

Khale_Kitha

lol

Rubio

5:44 PM

hahaa

Mithrandir

...That was me at first. It was a clue.

Khale_Kitha

Yeah, but you edited it, so I put it back :P

Chris Cudmore

I was playing with PRO-THE-D and couldn't get it.

Sphinx

0

Q: Continue the number sequence: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 20,

I can see that the length of each missing subsequence is greater by one than the length of the previous one. But I can't figure, how to determine its start number.

number-sequence

Khale_Kitha

^ :/

Mithrandir

5:46 PM

GTG

Khale_Kitha

It was almost a +1, +2, +1, +1, +3, +1, +1, +1, +4

....then we hit a +5 ><

Rubio

is there a mathjax size between \small and \tiny ?

Khale_Kitha

docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/tex.html

Rubio

nvm i see there are

2

Q: Is there a way to control the font size of MathJax equations?

Some equations have nested fractions and radicals e.g.: (which is the relationship of temperature between a planet and a star based on a radiative energy balance) Mathjax renders the equation this size: which makes it hard to read some variables. I am wondering: is any way to increase the ...

support feature-request

easier to find what I want there ;)

Khale_Kitha

Yeah - pity we don't have access to much of the MathJax on PSE

It's funny looking through old puzzles and going: "Oh right... I should do another puzzle like that, one day."

(Especially with how easy the original was)

@Techidiot A clue has been added.

Does nothing for me, though, since I still have no ideas on how to interpret the cryptic

Rubio

6:04 PM

interpret it By twos. (Then by fives.) obviously. :)

oh wait, sorry --

fixed that :)

Matt

don't think I've ever had a bounty before .. how do I get it?

Rubio

You wait for the bounty profferer to award it

Matt

that's what I figured, thanks

was just confused as to why he would mark it answered but not award the bounty

Rubio

If they never do, the system will award half its value to the best answer, if any qualify. where "best" is determined by some algorithm that cares about upvotes and, presumably, time posted.

I believe it has to be in place for ?3 days? before it can be awarded

Some non-trivial interval, anyway

Khale_Kitha

Yeah, it has a delay

Rubio

6:09 PM

I'm sure there's a help page for this. I'm lazy.

Khale_Kitha

I want to say it was 24 hours for this site, but it may have changed.

Matt

oh, so it's not even able to be awarded yet

that would make sense

Rubio

The bounty period lasts 7 days. Bounties must have a minimum duration of at least 1 day. After the bounty ends, there is a grace period of 24 hours to manually award the bounty. ...

If you do not award your bounty within 7 days (plus the grace period), the highest voted answer created after the bounty started with a minimum score of 2 will be awarded half the bounty amount (or the full amount, if the answer is also accepted). If two or more eligible answers have the same score (their scores are tied), the oldest answer is chosen. If there's no answer meeting those criteria, no bounty is awarded to anyone.

Everything you never wanted to know about bounty awards. :)

Matt

and they do not count toward the daily cap, right?

Rubio

correct.

Rand al'Thor

6:14 PM

Cute.

Rubio

... ?

Matt

I clicked on the question I think you were looking at ... I'm the lucky 10,000th viewer!!!

-____-

Khale_Kitha

hah

Rand al'Thor

Woo :-D

10002 now.

Rubio

Nice. Grats on 10k+

Is that your highest viewed, I take it?

Rand al'Thor

6:22 PM

Nope, second highest.

Rubio

Hmm

Rand al'Thor

Jan 1 at 22:44, by Rand al'Thor

Curiously, my two most-viewed questions on PSE both begin with the word "Five".

Khale_Kitha

My highest viewed, I honestly expected to get no more than 100-200 views.

Rand al'Thor

Jan 1 at 22:44, by Rand al'Thor

This being the other one (and I've no idea how that got so many views either - maybe the generic-sounding title?)

Rubio

viewed 30251 times

good god.

Khale_Kitha

6:23 PM

lol

wow, lol

Rubio

Maybe when you get a sec you can help me level this table of mine

Rand al'Thor

data.stackexchange.com/puzzling/query/463419/…

Khale_Kitha

What's interesting is the non-correlation between score and views

Mithrandir

My highest viewed ever has 22k last I saw

Rand al'Thor

And there we go: I'm into double digits on PSE gold badges :-D

@Khale_Kitha @Alconja once had a question with a score of ~70 and less than 1000 views.

Khale_Kitha

6:26 PM

started at 22k and went up 6 entries

Rubio

Nice!!

Khale_Kitha

didn't see yours, yet, so it may have gone up a bit

Yeah

Rand al'Thor

Sep 1 '16 at 22:48, by Alconja

:) that one got plenty of views though. I've got one with 66 +votes from only 652 views

Khale_Kitha

What's amusing to me is that my 19k views one has 32 favorites

but the 6k has 35

But then -- that feature's not really used the same by everyone.

Rand al'Thor

Favourites ... don't correlate strongly with much of anything as far as I can tell.

Khale_Kitha

6:28 PM

Yeah - I think it has a lot to do with people using them differently.

Rand al'Thor

I know one mod who uses favourites to mark particularly bad questions so that he can come back to them later and see if they've been closed.

Khale_Kitha

I used to clear a favorite once it was solved, because I used it to find ones I actually wanted to see later. Many people just use it to mark things like a second up-vote.

And since badges work off the 2nd method, it feels more encouraged.

Rand al'Thor

I don't really use favourites at all these days.

Khale_Kitha

Same

Rand al'Thor

Except maybe very rarely when I'm pushing someone towards a badge.

Anyone want to favourite this? :-P

Khale_Kitha

6:30 PM

Haven't setup, there, yet.

Rand al'Thor