The Sphinx's Lair

Will

00:32

I swear if the CCCC turns out to be what I think it is I will scream

Deusovi

What do you think it is?

Sphinx

01:45

0

Q: What is a Nowerk Word™?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word™/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Nowerk Word™. Use the examples below to find the rule. $$\begin{array}{|c|c|}\hline \bbox[yellow]{\textbf{Nowerk Wo...

Sp3000

02:15

waits for Will to scream

Silenus

02:37

I was thinking, probably like everyone, that it's a ddef involving illegal aliens. DETAINEE or something.

Sp3000

If it helps, clue #1: alien is not part of a def

Will

Good, I won't have to scream. :)

Sp3000

Wait what did you think it was? D:

Will

That's for me to know and you to maybe find out ;)

Sp3000

(Read: Will just came up with something good and will torture us with it in their next clue)

Will

02:44

"just" is incorrect
as is "torture" probably

"good" is debatable too while we're nitpicking that statement

Deusovi

03:21

-4

Q: The Puzzling Phone

The amazing "Puzzling Phone", comes in two models, one sold by "Super Puzzling Inc", and one sold by "Mega Puzzling Ltd" Phones need to have government testing before they can be sold on the market. Through this testing, it turns out that a third of the "Super Puzzling Inc" models on the market...

mathematics probability no-computers

Now it's a pure math problem. Do you all think this should be closed?

Mike Q

03:32

Not yet. It's freshly back from the dead; maybe the community should be able to see it for a bit longer before the mods drop the ol' guillotine.

Deusovi

...They can still see it.

Closing isn't to punish users, it's to get rid of questions that don't fit the site.

Mike Q

True, true. I'd suggest that if Gareth's answer is marked as the solution, then yes, it's a pure math problem.

Deusovi

I don't see any way it could not be a pure math problem.

Mike Q

It now mentions colors that are seemingly unrelated. Possibly a clue. Not likely, but possibly.

Then again, that is newly added, and so it could not have been part of the original solution. Just extra wordiness on a mostly mathematical question.

Deusovi

No, it's definitely not a clue.

There's no non-mathematical tags except no-computers.

Gareth McCaughan

03:47

@Deusovi I would VTC as a routine mathematics problem if it weren't for the fact that I can't because I already VTC'ed yesterday. But I still want to know what CR's alleged solution to the earlier version of the question was. I am increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of ever finding out.

Mike Q

Hmm... "A puzzle designed to be solved without using calculators or computers."

Deusovi

Should I modhammer then?

Yeah, you don't need calculators to do basic arithmetic with fractions.

Gareth McCaughan

I'd give it a little while to see e.g. whether CR accepts my answer (evidence that he really doesn't have anything cleverer in mind) and whether he is willing to tell us what non-stupid solution he thought there was to the earlier version.

It should absolutely end up closed unless there turns out to be something ingenious that we've all missed. But there's no particular urgency about closing it right now.

Deusovi

Low-quality questions that aren't closed attract bad answers.

Gareth McCaughan

(Even though I would VTC as an ordinary user, I wouldn't instaclose it if I were a mod. Am I right that there's no way for a mod to cast an ordinary close vote?)

Boring low-quality questions don't usually attract bad answers very fast. (I think.)

Deusovi

03:51

(Yeah. I really wish I could cast a regular close vote.)

Alconja

04:15

I've VTC'd. I'm pretty convinced that it's not a puzzle. The fact that OP is claiming it is, and the fact that this audience is predisposed to look for puzzles (even where there isn't one) has already caused it to get more attention than it rightfully deserves.

Rubio

04:32

given that previously, in response to my comment that it was exactly what it turned out to be, OP commented in essence that he believed such 'puzzles' were acceptable because there was some alleged debate on the subject on Meta that hadn't yet made math-problems-posing-as-puzzles definitively unfit ... his argument that there is a puzzle here, per se, is something I find entirely unconvincing.

Unfortunately I've already VTCed yesterday.

Alconja

(re: that meta question, herein lies the other issue with VTRO a non-puzzle "just to see what OP had in mind", the more vigilant VTCers can no longer keep quality in check because it needs to be closed twice)

Deusovi

@Rubio Yep, OP's been doing that for a while.

Rubio

@Alconja which if I'd known, would have made my VTRO answer even more vehement.

@Deusovi I'm not sure how much clearer it could be: there's a specific VTC reason for it, what more proof is needed?

Deusovi

Apparently there's "no consensus about what actually is a math problem".

Rubio

oh horsepucky.

Deusovi

04:46

Whoa, took me that long?

Ankoganit

lol

Deusovi

(from here: meta.puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/5523/…)

(above the +2 comment I made, there was a link to "examples" of questions that were closed and reopened after being edited)

Ankoganit

@Deusovi I don't think I have any tag badge. Yet.

Mike Q

@Deusovi Possibly silly question: Why can't these math problems go to the Math.SE site?

Deusovi

They can.

Well, sometimes.

Math.SE doesn't accept things in a 'puzzly' format.

Ankoganit

04:53

Well, they tend to close questions on math.SE unless you show your own work.

"Solve my problem and that's it" is not a good thing there.

Deusovi

Yep.

Alconja

05:11

Hey @deus, with the current CC... The '?' a the end implies that the def is a non-standard/wordplay-ish one, yeah? Does it also thus imply then that "loss" or "at a loss" is the def? Or could "restrained" still be the non-standard def?

Deusovi

Could be either.

It just means that something fishy is up.

Alconja

Ok, so the trailing "?" just indicates that something tricky is going on with a def

cool

Deusovi

Not necessarily with a def.

Ankoganit

It could even be something tricky with the wordplay

Or nothing tricky at all

Alconja

Oh.. ok. So, will it still follow the wordplay+def split, or is that part of what could be tricky?

Deusovi

05:16

It should follow the split.

Rubio

05:53

the trailing ? could also signal a ddef, but even there the two would be distinct

Alconja

@Rubio Ah, ok. So my previous (unwritten) thought that it could somehow be CLUELESS where, if we pretend that "alien" = "clue", then a restrained/subdued clue may be a lesser one, or a clue-less and "at a loss" is also a def.

Rubio

sure. if clue equalled alien, of course.

Alconja

which it clearly does and that's obviously the answer, so let's move on with the next one...

Ankoganit

:p

Alconja

Whilst trying to solve this one, I accidentally made a new one of my own, but I was wondering oh, cryptic gurus... Is there any way to have a word do double duty in a clue?

Like could I say "two Xs" to indicate 2 different X synonyms, or "X beside itself" to indicate XX?

Rubio

06:06

As opposed to simply repeating it?

Alconja

Yeah

To improve the surface reading more than anything

Will

If I'm understanding you I'd even think just "Xs" would be acceptable

Rubio

I'm not sure there's a fair way to do that, actually

Xs would imply a single synonym, and a plural one at that

as opposed to two separate singular synonyms.

"two Xs" is, if anything, worse; it suffers the same faulty implication, and adds the additional word "two" to deal with

Alconja

Probably easier just to work from the actual example...

Rubio

7 hours ago, by Rubio

Mr. McMahon left the twisted, twisted fools. (5) - this might be ok

Alconja

06:11

"gratuitous extraterrestrial inserts itself (8)"

Rubio

^ duplicated words needn't ruin a surface reading too badly

Alconja

The non-double duty version being something like (though with a flipped synonym & answer):

"extraterrestrial extracted from exterior extraterrestrial (6)"

So the first one is COSMETIC (gratuitous = def, COSMIC inserts ET) though I've just realised the "inserts" grammar is a bit off...

And the second is COSMIC (ET extracted from COSMETIC, extraterrestrial = def)

Will

I don't like the "itself" construct because it heavily implies sameness

Alconja

Yeah, that's what I thought too. I couldn't see a "fair" way to use the same word in the clue in two different ways.

Will

I can't think of a fair way in this instance for container/deletion either; but I can definitely see "Xs" or "two Xs" being fair in the case of a charade

Ankoganit

06:21

This for example:

Dec 19 '16 at 6:50, by Deusovi

Two girls, one cup (5) [NOTE: DO NOT GOOGLE THIS FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. IT IS THE NAME OF AN INCREDIBLY DISTURBING SHOCK VIDEO (that also happens to function as a valid cryptic clue) .]

Will

yes, exactly like that

Ankoganit

Or there's a classic one: "Two girls, one on each knee"(7)

Mike Q

07:45

My goodness, why would Deusovi do that?! (Also what was the answer?)

Alconja

08:08

@MikeQ GLASS ("two girls" = G + LASS, one cup = def)

Rubio

09:06

I just spent a few depressing minutes looking at cryptic crosswords in The Guardian - even with the answers I couldn't figure out the composition of several of the cryptics, and I would probably go mad trying to solve even one full crossword. The ones I understand make me despair of ever setting a clue that good.

Mithrandir

... I still don't understand cryptics...

Sp3000

09:24

I tried the UK ones for a bit and gave up - it's surprisingly hard to do crosswords from other countries because of culture differences...

Rubio

Yeah that's what I was finding, a lot

Or not even culture, but local people, places, things and current events and ideas that are (heh) foreign to me

Sp3000

Isn't that basically culture? :P

But yeah that and also cluing conventions

TheGreatEscaper

09:58

Hullo

Ankoganit

Hello @TGE

Re clues of the form "2 X's": a very recent example.

TheGreatEscaper

'What a strange and eventful year I have had so far', a statement that doesn't belong here nor one I will elaborate on, but one I kinda need to say anyway.

Here's a short cryptic with a surface reading that actually sounds normal: 'Tells lies again' (6)

Hang on

so would 'Missing two present' (7) be an acceptable clue?

Ankoganit

I think you could make that two 'presents'

which actually improves the surface reading

"Missing two presents (7)" sounds just perfectly misleading

TheGreatEscaper

but isn't that a plurality issue

Ankoganit

Umm why so?

TheGreatEscaper

10:10

Ohhhhhh

So you literally pluralize it

Ankoganit

exactly

TheGreatEscaper

I just assumed 'two Xs' would have to become Xs Xs

But I forgot how plurals work :P

I had a moment

Yeah, that's a lot nicer :)

Sp3000

Would probably stick a ? in the case of that one though

TheGreatEscaper

'Missing two presents?' (7)
Oh, to deal with the nonconventional definitions?

Sp3000

More because neither of the "presents" is usually pluralised, and it very much relies on the fact that there's two of them to have that reading

IMO anyway

TheGreatEscaper

10:15

Ah, gotcha

But the 'two girls' gets a LASS, which is definitely one girl

Oh right, but presents has a VERY different meaning to present

Which is not the case in the two girls clue.

Woohoo I'm learning cryptic stuff

Sphinx

10:37

0

Q: Can a 9x9 sudoku with sum 45 of (rows,collunms,3x3) not be valid

Is posible a sudoku solution, that all rows, all grids and all 3x3 grids have sum of 45 to not be a valid solution? Is possible to achive that sums with some duplicates? I make an algorithm that check sudoku solution and i try to find the most efficient way of achive that.

sudoku

TheGreatEscaper

11:11

I don't like this question at all, and the OP seems convinced that it's an interesting and valuable question. I'm convinced otherwise.

Sp3000

I think if you post a solution or family of solutions that'll be fine (hopefully)

I don't know whether they were expecting all, that would be annoying if so

TheGreatEscaper

But all 5s is such a trivial solution :\

It's a solution, and he acknowledged it in his comments

And then continues to say it's an interesting logic puzzle.

Maybe I'm a bit moody right now, but I really fail to see the value in this question, however it's interpreted at all.

I posted a family of almost 3 million solutions. You can increase that number exponentially with a few more lines.

Neil's answer is a family of at least 1296 * 5 billion solutions

Volatility

...in any case, I'm not sure the question belongs here

TheGreatEscaper

The question is either trivial or pointlessly strenuous.

Does it belong anywhere?

Finding a solution is as simple as making everything 5, or indeed, Neil's family of over 7 trillion solutions

The only way to extend such a question is to enumerate how many solutions there are, which believe me, not even a programmer would appreciate being asked to do that.

Volatility

11:26

Did you see the update? It's become an algorithm test question, although it looks more mathy than SO-y

TheGreatEscaper

Yeah, I saw the update. It's still asking almost the same thing, and it's just as easy to solve (555555555 still works?)

Oh, he put SQUARE.

...it's a number theory question now.

(also, I don't think it's an algorithm test question)

(it's a 'find 9 numbers which sum to 45 and their squares sum to 285, which are not the digits 1-9')

Volatility

Well, I guess it's both. He wants to know whether his/her algorithm is tight, but the basis for that is number theory.

Sp3000

It almost sounds like they want to code golf a Sudoku validity checker or something and are trying to find a short rule that works... in which case this might go on for a while

TheGreatEscaper

You know

maybe you could compare the numbers in each row, column, and square to the list [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]?

:P

The number theory question seems morbid. I'm not going to try it.

do the numbers have to be integers from 1 - 9?

Scratch that, I'm not bothering.

Volatility

The additional problem is that he/she doesn't give us much info about the algorithm

TheGreatEscaper

11:43

He/she does. It's just not well expressed.

All it checks is: is the row/column/box sum a constant, 45?

Is the row/column/box SQUARE sum a constant, 285?

Volatility

But what exactly is it checking?

as in the "sudoku solution"

TheGreatEscaper

I have a counter example if we're allowed non-integer reals.

I assume it's checking a 9x9 grid of values.

Volatility

well, he/she hasn't told us that

TheGreatEscaper

Fair enough

They haven't specified a domain either. Integers 1-9? Positive integers? Positive reals? Any real?

Anyway, the question has just ticked me off in a bad way, really, possibly undeserving of my exceedingly negative reaction, but I can't see it as a good question in any perspective.

The original question clearly didn't have much thought put into it (the trivial solution of 5s everywhere), so since the edit condition wasn't included in the original question, and there is no apology of leaving it out accidentally, it was added to 'beef up' the beast we're against. Which is not great in my opinion.

Volatility

@TheGreatEscaper This has given me an idea for a (complicated) grid deduction puzzle though: a sudoku variant involving two grids and fractions, where one grid gives the numerators and the other gives the denominators, and the resulting fractions have to satisfy a number slope grid. No idea how many (if any) valid grids there are though.

TheGreatEscaper

11:50

Strictly sloping? Or just a monotonous slope :P

Let me know if you ever do make a puzzle like that, anyway.

Hiya @NeilW

Volatility

@TheGreatEscaper I don't get it. Aren't they the same thing?

TheGreatEscaper

No... 4/8 1/2 wouldn't be allowed on a strict slope.

Neil W

Hi @TheGreatEscaper

TheGreatEscaper

What're your thoughts on this 'sudoku' puzzle?

Volatility

Ah sorry, forgot "monotonous" included 0-slopes as well

Neil W

11:55

The one that keeps getting more complicated?

TheGreatEscaper

Yes.

It's now a very very vague number theory question.

I have a solution using positive reals.

But if I post it, they'll say 'integers 1-9'

Neil W

Yes, the goalposts do tend to move don't they?

Not sure then's any obvious proof that's the conditions are sufficient though I suspect they are for integers 1-9.

That's just a gut feeling. I'm not inclined to prove it though.

TheGreatEscaper

It's not a particularly inviting question, anyhow.

You can probably do some arithmetic/quadratic mean thing.

Neil W

No from what I know about multiple sums of different multiple squares being equal, you would have to do an exhaustive search.

TheGreatEscaper

Yuk.

Neil W

12:07

And if they are just writing a validator why not just check that the numbers are 1-9?

TheGreatEscaper

I mentioned that above.

Ankoganit

Bingo. Just replace the tuple (1,...,9) with (1,1,4,4,6,6,7,7,9) in any valid grid and we've an example.

TheGreatEscaper

what fun

Neil W

@Ankoganit nice

There must be a nice equation behind that since we also have (2,2,3,3,5,5,8,8,9) and (1,2,2,5,5,7,7,8,8) and (1,3,3,4,4,6,6,9,9)

Neil W

12:43

(n-3)^2+(n-2)^2+n^2+(n+3)^2 = (n-4)^2+(n-1)^2+(n+1)^2+(n+2)^2

= 4n^2+ 22

(n-3)+(n-2)+n+(n+3) = 4n - 2 = (n-4)+(n-1)+(n+1)+(n+2)

so can map {n-3,n-2,n,n+3} to {n-4,n-1,n+1,n+2}, for n=5,6 though

Maria Deleva

14:48

Hey people! :)

I am working on a puzzle and I sort of need an opinion on a question I have :)

Considering my poor graphic skills, I intend on using an image as a base from internet. I would modify it, of course, but would a disclaimer stating the image is courtesy of so-and-so site be OK? Considering that I wouldn't use the image as is?

Gareth McCaughan

That depends entirely on the terms on which whoever originally made the image (might or might not be the same as whoever made the website you're taking it from) is prepared to let it be used. If you're lucky, they'll say somewhere. If you're a little less lucky, they won't but they'll give enough information to contact them and ask permission.

In practice, the chance that anyone will notice is small and the chance that anyone will object if they notice is small. It depends a little on how much of a creative achievement the image is (or they think it is).

Maria Deleva

15:04

Thanks, Gareth.

The site states you can use their images in school projects, presentations and "more". Whatever "more" means. I guess it would be fine to use it then.

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva That sounds like an open license, so I'd say it's safe to use.

Maria Deleva

@dcfyj Thanks.

I would still put a little text on the bottom to state where the base image was taken from.

dcfyj

Oh, of course, I would do the same, always good to give credit where you can.

Maria Deleva

:)

Sphinx

15:27

0

Q: Complete the tonal words

Complete all tonal words below, List their options in a row. Numbers for letters is what you need, They indicate what you should read. Just take these, strike out the rest, Now you have fulfilled your quest. TONAL -> LUNATIC LEACH -> SARCASM HEAP -> SASHIMI ROLL -> PLATEAU VERY -> C...

wordplay word-property

dcfyj

lol, "Lunatic Leach" (yes, I know they're are actually on separate lines)

Matt

sounds like a name generator gone wrong

or ... right?

Sphinx

0

Q: Who am I??? Wait, isn't this a sudoku?

Jmw jrr qtlf tv ee M6SXr rro tr kz r tyr. Can you find out who I am?

cipher enigmatic-puzzle sudoku

Ankoganit

Sphinx is fast these days

Sid

15:55

Good evening all..

@MariaDeleva Nice puzzle!

Maria Deleva

Hi, Sid

Thanks :)

Sid

I am so very tempted to put Code Puzzles: what (not) to do in there. :P

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva well, I know how to solve the sudoku. but it'll probably take a while to solve that lol

Maria Deleva

@dcfyj well, all puzzles take time :)

@Sid You have everything you need in my puzzle :P

dcfyj

Indeed you do

I have an idea how to solve the cipher,, but that's not getting solved until the sudoku is complete

Maria Deleva

16:01

That's the idea. Otherwise, the sudoku would have been pointless :)

dcfyj

:P

Sid

Yeah, solving the sudoku takes real time. Someone will solve that soon.

Maria Deleva

Well, it would be half an hour more or less for the sudoku.

Matt

I've cracked the state puzzle ... gonna take a while to write up

Ankoganit

State puzzle?

Rubio

16:11

the deaf cousin or whatever?

dcfyj

COOL

Oops, capslock

Matt

yeah

Ankoganit

Looks like I missed whatever that is...linky?

Matt

10

Q: The Absorbing State

Once a month my deaf cousin from Georgia visits her grandmother who lives in the state of Washington. Because of her hearing impairment, she and I made an agreement that she always texts me her whereabouts when she goes on a trip. She does this in the following way: every time she starts travelin...

lateral-thinking geography

Ankoganit

ah thanks

turns out i've already upvoted that one, but forgot afterwards :/

Rubio

16:13

That one intrigued me enough to draw out a map of the course followed, but I didn't see an obvious "in" and I got sleepy. hehe

Sid

Should riddles having the wordplay tag be shown in the FTC?

Rubio

Probably

Ankoganit

If the OP's willing, then yes

Rubio

Rotterslave I think runs some bot that harvests and auto-adds puzzles with the appropriate tag, but it seems to be behind or not running

Sid

Ping @LukasRotter if that works. they would fix it up

Ankoganit

16:16

That account is deleted now iirc

Rubio

I believe his main profile still exists, so it's usable for chat - he's been on here since deleting his PSE profile

Ankoganit

oh

Sid

@Ankoganit Woah. Excellent puzzle, that.

Ankoganit

Thanks :)

idk why, but my other entry has a surprisingly small number of views

Rubio

Staaahp posting all the good puzzles while I'm actually busy ;)

Ankoganit

16:20

hehe

Mike Q

16:36

I'm designing an upcoming puzzle and I'm hoping for some input. I would ask on the meta, but it may be considered too subjective and opinion-based. Is it ok if I ask here?

dcfyj

Go for it

Rubio

We're rude and uncooperative, and completely unwilling to help people make good puzzles. Because we hate good puzzles. Obviously.

dcfyj

As an aside, you can post it on meta, the worst that'll happen is it gets downvoted and you lose imaginary points.

Mike Q

What is or is not considered a riddle? Can it be any question, or does it need to be indirect? Can the question deal with the word itself, or does it need to describe the object?

dcfyj

I think this should answer your question

Rubio

16:39

A good riddle is generally about a single subject, described in obscure ways (and often in rhyme).

Beastly Gerbil

hullo

Mike Q

@dcfyj The trouble is that I need a one-line riddle. Most of the riddles I find on the site are poems or multiple lines.

Rubio

Ah.

dcfyj

Oh, one-line riddles are incredibly hard to make, they tend to be too broad

@BeastlyGerbil 'lo the beast

Rubio

Keep in mind it is notoriously difficult to make a good riddle because without sufficient specificity, they quickly devolve into people throwing out lots of things that fit the riddle as stated, though not the intended solution

Mike Q

16:41

Right, so the options I am considering are all very direct and don't require much creativity to answer.

Rubio

Imagine how quickly that will happen when your entire riddle is a single line

dcfyj

Does it have to be a riddle?

Mike Q

Yes. And I'm trying to avoid non-clever puns, which are easy to write in a single line.

dcfyj

OK, the best example I can give you is a three liner that I posted on here a fair while back (not my original, I'm not that clever)

31

Q: The Brothers' Riddle

Here's another riddle I know from a while back: The smallest of its brothers Twelve of them in all A large heart in the middle

riddle

Any reason why it has to be a single line?

Mike Q

Okay, so the solution has to be a thing? It can't be like "buy an apple" or "invest in gold"?

Rubio

16:45

I'm not sure how you would hint an action/activity vs. a thing/object

I suppose in theory you could but that just amps the difficulty to 11

dcfyj

I would say yes, i could be rather difficult to describe those anyhow. From what I've seen, typically riddles describes thing or ideas

Rubio

(in any number of lines, let alone one)

dcfyj

Really the one-line restriction is what makes it hardest

Rubio

It sounds more like you want not so much riddles, as (say) crossword clues

or even cryptics, though those are a bit harder to write

dcfyj

I think you need @HughMeyers or @Randal'Thor to help you (the first @ tag probably won't work) they're both good with riddles.

Mike Q

16:48

@Rubio What if the question is very easy and straightforward? Like "How does an octopus make caligraphy" and the answer is "With ink". It's not very riddle-like.

Rubio

"Speculate in bullion" or "Acquire an iPod?"

dcfyj

@MikeQ would a cryptic clue suffice?

Rubio

you were right the first time, two l's

dcfyj

Those are almost always one-liners

Rubio

And no, that's not a riddle, it in fact reads exactly like a crossword puzzle hint

except with no letter count, it's going to be verrryy open-ended

I can think of several reasonable answers to "How does an octopus make calligraphy"

dcfyj

16:50

yeah, letter count missing would make it incredibly hard

Sconibulus

Are you going for like a popsicle-stick type riddle?

Mike Q

@Sconibulus Sort of. But I suppose... since a cryptic clue is one line, I could just go with "generic puzzle", but I was really hoping to use a riddle.

Deusovi

Yeah, a one-line riddle is almost certainly too broad.

The only good short riddle I've seen is this one:

10

Q: My attempt at the world's shortest riddle: One rhyme, / Space, time

One rhyme, Space, time. (8-letters) The above is my attempt at the world's shortest riddle. EDIT - 23 Aug 2015 Here is my bid to get the riddle re-opened. Naturally to satisfy the community I have to add other constraints outside of the four words and this may make the riddle les...

riddle word

Mike Q

Another example: "Two words: What do you call a lunar trampoline?" Answer is "Moon bounce".

Deusovi

...What.

Why not "space jump"?

That's incredibly broad.

Mike Q

16:57

Point taken. Alright folks, thanks for the feedback.

Sconibulus

When a dwarvish diviner went on the lam, what was the headline?

Deusovi

Small medium at large! ba-dum tsh

Sconibulus

still really broad though

Deusovi

But anyway Mike, that's why cryptic clues work well - they have two separate and completely different routes to the answer.

Rubio

and letter counts, so there's very little latitude for "close but not quite"

Matt

17:03

Whew. finally finished that write up ...

Deusovi

Yep. That's the reason for a lot of the seemingly arbitrary cryptic clue rules. Like the "double defs must be from completely unrelated meanings" rule.

dcfyj

So really, the "shortest riddle" you link is a cc haha

Deusovi

I'm not sure if it'd fit some of the rules.

Sid

@Deusovi Moon bounce seems good because Lunar=Moon and not space.

dcfyj

One rhyme, space, time(8) which rules is it not conforming to (asking out of interest)

Deusovi

17:05

Still, "moon bounce" isn't a common phrase or anything. And why "bounce" instead of "jump", or "fun"?

"space, time" might not be an appropriate definition for some people, and "one = uni" is a bit questionable.

dcfyj

Uni looks valid to me

Deusovi

It's a prefix, not an actual word. It'd probably be a bit iffy for some people.

dcfyj

true

Matt

My brain hurts now. too many capitals

dcfyj

What's a ? in a CC again?

Sid

17:16

@MOehm Was this simply trial and error? Or did you get it from the puzzle only?puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/48295/…

Deusovi

@dcfyj It just means there's something fishy going on with the clue.

dcfyj

ok

Sid

Shit! I hate it when real life gets in the way of Puzzling. Damn!

Deusovi

...Is everything okay?

dcfyj

@Sid I got the fox/dog reference right away (from the statue) but I didn't look into to it further.

@Deusovi define "fishy" lol

Deusovi

17:19

I... can't.

dcfyj

haha ok

Deusovi

17:32

For Maria's recent puzzle, I'm pretty sure that the cipher's gonna lead us to an Imgur page.

dcfyj

What gives you that idea?

incesterror21

@FrodCube you here?

Deusovi

The five characters with varying capitalization, one of which is a number.

"Jmw jrr qtlf tv ee M6SXr rro tr kz r tyr."

dcfyj

huh

Deusovi

Looks very imgur-URL-y to me.

dcfyj

17:40

but sadly enciphered

Deusovi

Yeah.

And I've tried a couple things with 196 to figure out the cipher. None of them have worked.

dcfyj

maybe something to do with this?

(i doubt it but you never know)

Deusovi

Nah, I don't think so.

dcfyj

letter-wise it's AIF which also makes no sense

Deusovi

Or TF.

dcfyj

17:45

You mean SF?

t=20

M Oehm

@Sid Oleslaw had noticed that both the encoded message and "The quick brown fox" are 35 letters long. I had already seen earlier that "kqx" occurred twice, so the message was the quick brown fox. And if the plaintext doesn't mean anything, the actual message must be in the encoding, I thought. Some quick and dirty Python code confirmed that.

Maria Deleva

@dcfyj @Deusovi Let's just say that I didn't pick the number at random. :P

M Oehm

I didn't need the enumeration given in the first hint after all. The hints weren't very helpful, except the one that says that all 26 letters are present. I didn't see the significant of the sleeping dog, though. And the code mechanism itself isn't really useful.

Deusovi

@dcfyj Yeah, whoops.

@MariaDeleva Oh, I don't think you did.

Hm... 196 is 14^2. Could that be relevant?

FrodCube

Hi @incesterror21

(and everyone else)

dcfyj

17:52

What cipher can you think of offhand that change a double letter encryption (like ee) to a feasible word? (like at, it, etc)

Deusovi

Bifid? Playfair? Vignere?

Rubio

Vigenere can, yeah

Maria Deleva

@Deusovi I could have easily picked 13^2, which is 169. But I didn't.

dcfyj

Playfair would make sense here, 14 squared is 196

Deusovi

"Could have" meaning that it wouldn't've changed anything?

Maria Deleva

17:56

Could have, meaning that it would have been just as random as 14. But it isn't.

Deusovi

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

I guess that the fact that it's 14^2 isn't important?

Maria Deleva

Nope, not in the slightest

dcfyj

Would 961 or 916 both be plausible arbitrary choices as well?

or 619/691

Deusovi

dcfyj, the point was that 169 wouldn't have worked. I think.

Maria Deleva

Exactly.

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