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12:45 AM
So. Much. Activity. Today.
 
1:08 AM
MIT is happening
so that's kinda killed a lot of people
 
Well, weekends are always fairly dead.
 
1:50 AM
Yeah - not particularly surprising all things considered.
 
I'm busy writing up a self-answered "guide to solving" for the topic challenge along the lines of @Deusovi's famous Cryptic Clue Guide.
Been planning this for a while. Maybe I'll finally be able to post it tomorrow.
 
cool!
looking forward to reading it :)
 
To heighten the suspense, I won't say which particular type of puzzle it'll be about ;-)
 
...mysterious :P
No one's quite made it to the return journey of Witless yet... that's the most fun part of the puzzle!
 
I'm a little sad that Ripple Islands didn't get more attention.
And not just because I answered it :-P
 
2:04 AM
Lol. It was a fun puzzle to make, and hopefully a fun puzzle to solve for you
And that's the main thing :D
 
The easier (?) original Ripple puzzle got loads of votes because it was new and exciting, and then by the time you made the more interesting and advanced one, people had lost interest.
That's long been a pattern here. In a sequence of puzzles of similar type, the question score will usually be monotonically decreasing.
Even my Mysterious Email puzzles fell prey to that effect. Andrew Void is my highest-voted question ever, but the WWF one didn't even hit double digits.
 
I also noticed that puzzles that are easy to 'quickly' appreciate also get higher numbers of votes
Heh. A Void.
I'm trying to avoid that abundant symbol, in this poor and awkward saying.
 
@TheGreatEscaper Yeah, that's a network-wide phenomenon. Which unfortunately means that questions which are easy to answer tend to get more votes than those which are more thought-provoking and interesting.
@TheGreatEscaper Good job, ThGratScapr.
 
And thanks for the upvote (I assume that was you).
One vote short of ninety!
 
 
1 hour later…
3:22 AM
well. I'm not upvoting it.
(only cuz I already did. heh)
 
Ooh
I thought of another grid deduction puzzle
Like, another type
I think i really want to make one of these
 
You might have a problem. ;)
 
Fortunately, your problem is a windfall for the rest of us, so ... by all means, indulge it
 
3:45 AM
This is fairly hard to design without the help of a computer
but i think it's a really fun concept
 
4:42 AM
How's the MIT hunt going @TheGreatEscaper?
 
5:03 AM
And did you solve Mirror Ball?
 
5:32 AM
Making my puzzle, I realised that I had the letters of DNA left! What are the chances?
 
5:49 AM
Hello? Anyone out there?
I didn't realise the day was this slow...
 
6:03 AM
Hello
It's me
I've been wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet?
To go over everything.
 
Ugh
no
'To go over' and 'Everything' should be on separate lines
 
6:19 AM
Also my new grid deduction puzzle has been christened 'haisu'
With a little bit of Japanese knowledge you could probably guess what my puzzle is about
 
lol
indeed
it's a number poem
 
How's the MIT hunt going @TheGreatEscaper?
And did you solve Mirror Ball?
 
7:00 AM
Mirror Ball was solved while I was asleep :P
 
7:12 AM
It looks like we have a Deusovi impersonator on site
 
0
Q: Word in a twisty fractal maze

ObsouviThis is a fractal maze, but with a twist. It's hiding a 11 letter word also. Can you find it ? Hints/Notes: All the tags are appropriate. You don't need any external reference to solve this.

 
Nov 20 '16 at 15:29, by Rand al'Thor
: if @Deusovi ever makes a sockpuppet, he should call it Obusovi.
 
7:36 AM
@TheGreatEscaper I feel like someone's just pulling your leg
 
It's funny, anyhow :P
The puzzle seems interesting
but I honestly don't see a place to start
 
Sid
Isn't it obvious who it really is? But, anyhow, the puzzle is the main focus.
 
I don't think it's Noah. He's busy with MIT/asleep.
My only other guess is a bit weird.
 
Sid
Okay, don't pay too much attention to that. I am sure, People will soon know who that really is.
 
@TheGreatEscaper @abitweird?
 
7:41 AM
Oh it's probably bobo, is it.
 
Sid
@Rubio You there? I could send you the puzzle for test-solving. It's complete.
 
@Sid I'd love to take a look as well
This is the grid deduction one, is it not?
 
Sid
Yep. It is.
 
Bobo fits the liking math part, but he's not in TSPI. The only other guess I had was AK.
 
Sid
It is AK
 
7:42 AM
lol
 
Yeah. I was hesitant to say that at first.
 
I was kinda thinking in that direction as well
 
But that was my initial suspicion as soon as I got the somewhat bitey reply to my joke
Hullo!
 
Speak of the devil
 
@AK i know you can't speak in chat
Your puzzle seems cool.
I can't seem to work out where to start, though.
 
Sid
7:44 AM
Anyway, @TheGreatEscaper I would prefer you to solve it on the site, rather than out of it. You are the master-solver of Grid Deduction here. I wouldn't want too much guys to be involved out of the site though. It's a bit tough.
 
It seems fairly obsouvi that each coloured square represents a smaller copy of the similarly coloured quadrant
 
It's too bad it will likely be taken down
 
@Sid fair enough :)
Try to post it while I'm still awake :D
 
btw, I was looking at buying a gaming setup
came to over $9200 d'oh
 
Sid
Not today, though. I would most probably post it on monday or tuesday.
 
7:46 AM
[insert over 9000 joke here]
 
Cool
Ping me when you're gonna post
The fractal maze seems to have two red and two green exits
 
Sid
@BeastlyGerbil You too will get it when you are here. Just ping me. I would e-mail you.
 
The problem is, it's not a maze and I can't think of a way to turn it into one.
Joining red-red and green-green is a topological impossibility
And joining red-green pairs is trivial, unless there's some other restriction
Which might be, due to the 'twisty' in the title, to turn at every intersection
I should check that
I don't like that thick white path in the bottom left
Twisty could also mean it's one of those 'only turn direction here' puzzles
But this is a lot of guessing without anything to really support or confirm.
It's not a 'only turn direction' puzzle, figured thatmuch.
turn every intersection doesn't yield anything interesting, it's a fairly basic solve.
I'm lost, anyhow
I'll just keep working on my 'HAISU' puzzle.
Oh cool.
I wasn't working particularly hard on it, anyhow :P
okay THIS makes more sense. It's probably a directional turn maze.
Actually
I think it's an alternating colour maze
Nope, that makes the lower left exit unreachable under any circumstances.
So it's directional, which makes a lot more sense so far......
It turns it into not a maze but a 'follow the path', but that'll probably make a pattern to decode
Hold up, that doesn't work either.
What even IS IT? :P
I think it's a sign that I should keep working on my own puzzle, lol
Have a Haisu Sneak Peek:
 
8:08 AM
If it is AK, @Deusovi will be really annoyed. He suspended me from chat for a minute for bringing him up.
I'm in the final stages of my puzzle now, so it will probably be up tonight
 
He'll probably be even more annoyed because of the profile.
Ooooh cool. Do we get a sneak peek?
 
Not really, there's not much point now. I should have done it earlier :P
Anyways, it might ruin the puzzle...
 
Hello! I just came to check in.
And I'm very annoyed right now.
 
Sid
8:31 AM
You have to applaud his creativity though...
@Deusovi How is the MIT hunt going?
 
Pretty well! We're just 2 dozen or so puzzles away from the final puzzle.
 
Sid
Was Obsuovi's puzzle deleted?
 
Yes.
 
Sid
Along with that fake account?
 
Yes.
 
9:13 AM
Anyone willing to offer assistance in filling my puzzle?
 
Filling?
 
yes
As in placing the numbers so that there are no contradictions
Actually, I'm going to start smaller and see if I can get one for that size
 
Filling what puzzle I mean?
 
my up-coming , Surippuru
 
9:31 AM
:/
just proven by logic: my puzzle is impossible according to its own rules
 
9:54 AM
New one coming soon
maybe 20 minutes or so
 
@boboquack when will we be seeing yours?
 
4/5s of the way through final prep, so hopefully in 30 mins or so (fingers crossed)
 
@boboquack I don't want to compete with your puzzle, should I hold off on mine until later?
 
@TrojanByAccident there isn't exactly a lot to compete with
 
@TrojanByAccident No, let them eat more cake.
 
10:07 AM
@TheGreatEscaper lol
 
I'm gonna start solving whichever one gets posted first, and then solve the other when I'm done
 
@boboquack alright
 
I meant it's a quiet day
 
Mine will take a long time, so do Trojan's first
 
just test-solving mine quickly
 
10:07 AM
Anyone around will appreciate some new puzzles.
 
10:23 AM
Almost there
ran into some continuity problems
 
How? Aren't all puzzles discrete?
 
?
define discrete in this context
 
Can be divided into units of a minimum size
 
not sure what you mean
I meant that I had used a number elsewhere in one part, and then tried to use it again
and forgot a number or two
...or three
 
Each cell is discrete, is what I meant
 
10:35 AM
still not sure what you mean
lol
 
It's a math joke trojan
 
okay
:/
I can't find another way to express this solution
but the first way I had was ambiguous
had 2 solutions at the least
because two cells could be switched no problem
e.e
I tried fixing it, but I can't get it to work
it's really annoying
:/ I'll post a smaller puzzle then
 
I've had that problem several times while making my puzzle
 
Ehh
I've stalled long enough
I'll just post a riddle
:P
 
@TrojanByAccident @TheGreatEscaper My puzzle has been posted. Don't be fooled, it may look simple but it's not.
Where are you @Sphinx?
I'm logging off now.
 
10:49 AM
k
 
Have fun!
 
I'm about to after I post this riddle
 
What a beautiful resolution for the red symbols
@Boboquack how many types of red symbols are there???
It's hard to make out, even in the big picture, whether some differences are due to resolution clumping or not
 
0
Q: A Family Reunion

boboquackNames have been changed to preserve anonymity A group of 25 people, A to Y, arrived at Z's door to celebrate the family reunion. They each had something to show off. Z: I know you're all excited to get in, but remember we've got we want to say to the community. To make sure you're all ready,...

 
11:13 AM
My puzzle took longer than expected
anyway
it's 6:13 am
going to sleep now
gn all
 
night
 
Hope my riddle isn't too hard :)
 
is it steganography?
 
11:17 AM
just a riddle
:P
anyway, I'm off
see ya guys later
 
user61230
Me: "I'm an idiot." Everyone else: "Let's star this and save it for all eternity."
13
 
0
Q: A Nine Letter Word

TrojanByAccidentOnce upon a time, there was a young prince. This prince had a puzzle instructor, and one day he arrived in his instructor's chambers, only to find that there was only a note on his table. I've left you this riddle, dear prince, you see, This is a test, while I rest my knee. There are plen...

0
Q: What's your logic for logical-magical stick, Mr. Supervisor?

H.ModhIn a village, There are 400 streets, 200 with Yellow painted homes and 200 with Blue painted homes. Each street has 16 homes as in below blueprint. But there are certain set of rules, that should be followed for accommodation in each home. Basic Rules for ideal conditions are: Only one person...

 
12:17 PM
0
Q: What is guessing?

NPSThe whole difficulty of solving puzzles like sudoku is doing it without guessing. Well, either without any guessing whatsoever or with little enough that a human can still make retractions and come to a solution. But was is guessing? How do we define it? People intuitively feel it but don't real...

 
12:36 PM
@TrojanByAccident Really? I couldn't find any riddlish meaning hidden in those words; was sure it must be steganography.
@Sphinx Not sure if this should be closed ...
 
Seems a bit broad
 
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
But I haven't actually read the question in enough detail to be sure :-P
 
I read it through completely and I'm unsure
I tried to answer it, but it was actually harder than I expected
It's like asking someone to define 'the'. People are so used to the word, they don't know the actual definition
 
1 hour ago, by Emrakul
Me: "I'm an idiot." Everyone else: "Let's star this and save it for all eternity."
So true :P
 
 
1 hour later…
2:04 PM
@Randal'Thor you ninjad me on @humn 's question!
 
@TheGreatEscaper Gotta be quick round here ;-)
 
Ah well.
By the way, I'm working on a new grid-deduction puzzle. It might be up soon, thought I should let you know :)
It's a very original concept, as far as I know
 
oooh i'm there
 
I have 5 of the top 15 :-]
 
2:11 PM
2
Q: What the L are they trying to prove?

humnSeems some L t rominoes have developed a punk attitude and feel they have something to prove because people always play with dominoes instead.   They are even jealous of I trominoes, who can try to pass for tall dominoes. One L of a tromino has devised a caper that might at last grain some notor...

 
@TheGreatEscaper Looking forward to that!
My tutorial post is coming along nicely too.
 
It's called 'Haisu'. It's a portmanteau of 3 japanese words.
Hairu, su, and hausu.
 
Wow, you can fit 3 Japanese words into 5 letters?
 
Portmanteau = hybrid word, like brunch
 
@TheGreatEscaper Yes, I know :-) A term originally coined by Lewis Carroll, in reference to a type of suitcase with two compartments.
It's a pity @JoeZ. isn't around any more. He made a few interesting Japanese-themed puzzles, back in the day.
 
2:16 PM
They're all short words, anyway, which is why I could fit them into such a succinct title :)
Hairu is a verb meaning 'to enter', su (familiar possibly from sudoku or our own Volatility's sukobai) meaning 'number', and hausu being a borrowed word from english meaning 'house'.
You might get an idea of the mechanics from that!
 
> Thou, unworthy puzzler, shalt solve this grid in order to Enter the Number House.
 
Bwahahaha
It uses a very unusual type of logic I've not seen before
So it'll be cool to see how people try to tackle it
 
rubs hands in anticipation
 
2:35 PM
possibly another hour or two before it'll be ready
but you know how easy it is to underestimate :P
 
2:59 PM
Mine is pretty much ready now. I'm just going to go away and eat, and then come back to do some final changes to the formatting before posting it.
Hope you'll still be here when it goes up :-D
 
possibly!
Most likely :)
Because I'll be up at least until I post mine
which will take a little while longer
 
3:22 PM
It's getting there!
 
3:34 PM
Dammit, is there nowhere I can use as a sandbox to test some SE maths formatting?
Apparently main meta's sandbox doesn't support Mathjax.
 
^^ (why isn't "Ask a Question" at Puzzling good enough, @Rand al'Thor, is the MathJax in a spoiler (where preview isn't faithful)?)
.....
Puzzling in The New Age News!
They even edited it, all within 8 hours of its appearance here.
 
Heh. Cool!
 
@humn Because I'm not 100% certain that the thing will actually render in the way it's shown in the preview. It looks like a line is continuing too far out to the right instead of wrapping around, and I'm not sure if SE allows posts to overflow like that.
Although, allowing posts to Overflow the Stack would be in the spirit of the flagship site ...
 
.............................................^^
I don't recall MathJax ever wrapping, or hitting any boundary on the right. Think the left margin isn't solid either, but not sure.
Then again, different browsers...
 
Haisu is 80% complete!
It is, however, 11:46 pm here.... Not sure if i have the stamina to finish up and make a nice copy tonight...
I may have to leave it till tomorrow morning!
 
3:46 PM
(looking back for a sneak preview)
 
I can resend if you want :P
It's the small example puzzle I'll use to explain the rules
 
Are you discovering a puzzle universe in a grain of grid? This has symbols, boundaries and two sizes of numbers!
 
The symbols are just start and finish :P I felt like 'S' and 'F' were too boring.
The rules are very simple, actually. It'll be explained fully in the post.
I won't explain the rules in chat before publication, but since it'll be ready tomorrow morning, I may as well send the solution to the 5x5 example if you have no complaints?
 
The world can't wait
but I can
 
@TheGreatEscaper If you stick around for another 10-15 minutes or so, you should be able to catch my post.
 
3:51 PM
No doubt it will be worth the wait, and worth some sleep.
(funny thing about example puzzles, I was making one yesterday and it turned out to be a solution to the big puzzle, which then had to be recalibrated)
 
@Randal'Thor I'll be disappearing for 10-20 but I'll be back to catch your post!
 
Post, R al'T ? You owe me a couple of quickie puzzles. (Looking forward to your dotting the i's on the L puzzle.)
Two weekends in a row you've beaten the land speed record in solving mine.
... back to the buffet ... see you(r post) on the front page ...
 
@humn Two puzzles in a row of yours have been way easier than your usual fare!
But still fun and very imaginatively presented, of course.
Anyway, my post is up:
0
Q: Strategy for solving 0hh1 and Unruly?

rand al'thorQ42's game 0hh1 and Simon Tatham's game Unruly are two almost identical logical deduction games. In each one, we're given a square grid which is to be filled by tiles of two colours, and a certain initial setup of given tiles. We need to fill in the rest of the tiles, subject to the following res...

@Deusovi ^ Just look at how much time you've made me waste on 0hh1! :-P
And bah, those titles do overflow the page width. @humn, you're a Mathjax expert - any idea how I can fix that?
 
4:08 PM
Wewee! Lots of pretty gifs.
 
@Randal'Thor I should probably apologize.
I mean, I'm not going to, but I probably should.
 
:-D
It's fine. I've had a lot of fun making this post.
 
@Deusovi how is MIT going? I find the format kinda overwhelming, and have checked in only a few times to do some stuff for the logic puzzles
 
I had so much fun reading it I forgot to vote!
 
It's going pretty well! Yeah, it can definitely be a bit overwhelming - we do need your help with a musical meta, if you know any music theory.
 
4:09 PM
What a week or so for new grid games! Had fun playing Ohn0 too.
 
A musical meta?
which one is this?
 
Modest Minstrels
 
as in Modest Mussourgski?
 
We'll talk more on Discord if you have the time. (If not, I'm sure we can find someone else - don't stay up just for this!)
 
2
Q: Strategy for solving 0hh1 and Unruly?

rand al'thorQ42's game 0hh1 and Simon Tatham's game Unruly are two almost identical logical deduction games. In each one, we're given a square grid which is to be filled by tiles of two colours, and a certain initial setup of given tiles. We need to fill in the rest of the tiles, subject to the following res...

 
4:11 PM
I've taken a look at the sheets
where have the chords and notes come from?
the audio files underneath each question?
 
yeah
probably can't say too much here though
 
(looking at the MathJax, @Rand al'Thor)
 
What specifically are the chords on the sheets supposed to be?
i know I certainly don't agree with all of them if they're supposed to be the central key, or final chord, etc.
 
@humn I just did a hacky change to force line breaks, but it's probably still going to look bad for people with small screens.
 
Really sorry @Deusovi but I gotta catch some sleep for now
 
4:16 PM
Alright, see ya.
 
@Sid I am back now - wasn't around much yesterday as promised :)
 
Right, @Rand al'Thor, the only way, hate to say, to beat the system is to make each word or pair into a separate $ MathJax call $, which can only be made slightly easier by defining an abbreviation for $\textbf$
 
Ah, that's quite a neat way to do it.
 
And about these easy puzzles, R al'T, each one is a trial balloon for a toughie that might or might not fly.
 
And keeping $\color{green}{\textbf{ on my clipboard makes it easier to do: just lots of copy-pasting and } and $ signs.
 
4:22 PM
... right forgot to say that all that can be abbreviated with one $\def$ at the beginning of the post, in case you didn't know...
$\def\G #1{\color{green}{\textbf{#1}}}$
then $\G{and another thing}$ is what each snippet will look like
 
Oh OK. That will make it easier.
Thanks! :-D
 
@humn you're not allowed to look at, let alone critique, my Times puzzle. :) I did so many things inefficiently, as I've since learned.
I do have a quick question for you that i haven't been able to find an answer to yet. What is "%" in a mathjax macro?
 
no doubt, Rubio, I know better than to look at my previous stuff too
"%" is comment (with extra duty when you want to control trailing spaces)
 
I guessed it's a token paster, but I couldn't actually tell
ahhhh. got it
does it eat through the next linebreak, inclusive?
 
if you saw % in one of the puzzles, though, it's definitely being used as a magic token like you might suspect
 
4:28 PM
Yeah I saw it in a few of them
 
yes, it forces spaces before it and kills the linebreak after it
 
nice. thanks
 
In the puzzles, it creates special effects depending on when it is parsed (only gets interpreted as comment after a certain stage of parsing)
 
I was mainly trying to understand the mechanics to this simple one - understanding it exactly seemed pretty easy. puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/41978/mathjax-looks-kool
 
definitely uses % as an inactive token until the right moment at the end
and a funny messy use of % to nullify a stray | mirror edge
arr, though, another instance of a solution getting more recognition than the puzzle
 
4:40 PM
@Rubio With apologies to humn, I'm still not sure whether I like that kind of puzzle.
But then I'm kind of biased against computer puzzles in general, being almost totally ignorant about all things computery.
 
oh, Rand al'Thor, that puzzle was never meant for an audience of perhaps more than 1 a year.
 
I even had to get help from a guy in another chatroom to get those gifs to render properly without being massive. Putting "m" or "s" before the ".gif" made them stop moving, for some reason, so he had to teach me how to use html tags.
 
Those gifs had me reaching for the popcorn! (well worth the effort you put into them)
 
@Randal'Thor Oh I wasn't planning on making a puzzle like that, I just wanted to learn a little more MJ from it :)
 
At least a couple different people bit on them so far. They really are good puzzles within their arena.
 
4:45 PM
@humn I like to overperform on occasion ;-)
 
Your word tree squares have me looking through my file of spare word parts, R al'T.
I'd like to extend the structure inward a level or two and put a clue right in the middle as well.
It would form a structure of clues and guesses with a variety of interactions.
where some guesses are guided by two immediate clues from outside,
 
@humn Great! I was hoping someone would pick up that idea and run with it.
 
some guesses only guided by guesses on all sides,
and some guesses guided by guesses on the outside and a clue on the inside
 
After giving feedback on the simple Word Connections puzzle I solved, I was inspired to create something a little more interesting, but was too lazy to make it any more complex than a couple of layers.
 
hard enough to find words that work like that
only found a couple in my bag
 
4:49 PM
There'd be more possibilities if you allow the word length to vary more.
 
(one that won't get used was from English SE: to+get+her = together)
 
All of mine were 4 letters (although to make it harder, I didn't tell anyone that restriction beforehand).
@humn I came across another example by accident yesterday: to+read+or = toreador.
 
into the bag it goes!
 
You might also get some inspiration from the puzzle xnor mentioned the other day:
12
A: Split: A puzzle-hunt style word puzzle

Sp3000That was a very, very nice puzzle! Solved this with a lot of help from @grc Here's a step-by-step walkthrough of how we solved it. Working out some clues We figured that (#X of Y) probably meant that the clue answer had Y letters, and that we had to take the X-th letter later. Why some clues d...

 
puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/48011/… I can barely read the question, let alone have any clue as to how anyone would go about formulating an answer. heh
 
4:52 PM
@Rubio Same here. I'm almost tempted to downvote.
 
@humn I just noticed that art in your profile. It's really good. How did you do it?
 
@Randal'Thor great examples
in a text editor with . : ' characters, BeastlyGerbil, through a program i wrote for a dot-matrix printer 120 x 72 resolution
(the violin represents a friend, not me) (the geometric rose is/was a puzzle to construct) (the rodent represents me in pre-humnoid form)
 
Apparently your L puzzle reached the HNQs, @humn.
 
0hn0! At least "Finger that bad digit" (before being renamed) never did
 
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