The Sphinx's Lair

Rubio

00:00

The offset by one seems unhelpful, and pretty dubious anyway

Deusovi

wasn't sure whether to include the key or not

ooh, hold on

just had an idea

Rubio

so the complete cycle is 120 long, rather than 60

does basically doubling the circumference of the original cyclic grid help any?

Deusovi

oh, it's exactly 120? huh

Rubio

unless I miscounted, which is possible

Deusovi

maybe it's the letter exactly opposite the ones it says?

yep, exactly 120

Rubio

00:11

afk a few

Deusovi

does EAT GEERD mean anything to you?

boboquack

Any users named @Geerd?

Volatility

the letters in the second group of four are two places after the ones in the first, just in a different order

Deusovi

hm?

Volatility

in SCOV RUEF

Deusovi

00:15

no they aren't

rot2(O) is Q

Volatility

I mean on the grid

Deusovi

oh

probably coincidence?

ohhh actually

maybe not

aha!

Alconja

so what about if you overlap the loop such that they line up?

Deusovi

the letters in between spell TREK

Volatility

hah

Deusovi

00:17

you wanna edit your post, or should I make one?

Volatility

you did most of the work, I think you should

Rubio

wow. nice.

Deusovi

I'm a bit disappointed that the encryption ended up having no significance.

I tried re-encrypting and reading them off as if they were letters.

Volatility

the second is the word number, and the first is the letter within it

Deusovi

oh whoops, switched them

Volatility

00:27

should I get rid of the cryptic clues in my answer?

Deusovi

Might be a good idea? Not sure - it's up to you.

Khale_Kitha

00:44

@humn as mentioned - I'm okay with it, if that's what you're wanting.

humn

:35337170, thanks once again for being generous with your chat room but I was starting to feel pushy.

If the last experiment works, I might start an ownerless minimal-etiquette room.

Deusovi

01:13

What's going on?

humn

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - The Bridge of Death

►

^riddle

Gareth McCaughan

that somehow feels like it should have the (being-destroyed? already-destroyed) :job-interview: tag :-)

humn

hahahahhaaa

Gareth McCaughan

sorry, actually it's :job-interview-question:

humn

:???: ... you're not going Logo-syntax on us are you? (:variable-name or :variable name:)

Gareth McCaughan

01:30

no. I have a vague recollection of some context in which leading+trailing colons are used to denote tags. Maybe it's not Stack Exchange, though.

Volatility

it's [tag:tag-name] here: tag-name

Gareth McCaughan

(I think Logo is neither syntactically interesting enough nor well enough known to make for good jokes in chat. Lisp or Forth would be more promising for that purpose.)

Ah. I'll bear that in mind.

cor, those get not only special formatting but magic tag-search links.

Deusovi

04:09

Alright, it's been nearly a day and my cryptic clue still hasn't been solved.

I'm going to update it to make it slightly better.

Rubio

that ... didn't help. :)

Beastly Gerbil

Good very early morning

Rubio

hullo BG

Deusovi

Hey!

@Rubio Does that mean you want another hint?

(Well, an actual hint.)

Rubio

nah.

At least we know now that party isn't the def - that's hint enough hehe

Alconja

04:21

do we know that though? could just be clarifying the party def as "party as a whole" implying the "group" type of def, as opposed to the "event" type of def

boboquack

@mods, do you think I should get rid of the 3 remaining job-interview-questions?

Deusovi

Go for it.

Rubio

@Alconja true, but Deus hates excessive verbosity in cc's - I don't think he'd consider adding words like that to be improving the clue. just my gut feeling here.

Deusovi

"Deus hates excessive verbosity in cc's" - unlike some people...

Rubio

yes, yes. :)

Alconja

04:23

This is true. I also came up blank looking for party as def answers, so another angle makes sense.

Rubio

my next one is 3 words long, so ...

Alconja

That being said, if "essentially" is the def, how do you fit that into a 4 letter word?

Rubio

I don't know.

There are plenty of candidate words, but none I can see working with the remaining word play

boboquack

@Randal'Thor, go ahead and update your iq-test proposal. job-interview-question has gone.

Alconja

@Rubio there are? won't they grammatically need to be ".{2}ly", leaving no(?) options?

Rubio

04:27

true.

Beastly Gerbil

I can't even see the cc (mobile), what is it?

Rubio

"only" maybe, though that's weak

Deusovi

Essentially, noble party as a whole (4)

Rubio

CCCC: Essentially, noble party as a whole (4)

Alconja

@BeastlyGerbil For reference, click the hamburger menu, then Starred

Beastly Gerbil

04:29

Ok thanks

Alconja

(used to be "Essentially, noble party (4)")

Rubio

that gives you all of them doesn't it? not just the latest

Alconja

well yes, but it'll be the top starred item

Rubio

04:43

oh, yeah I know - just wondering if that's what it did :)

Sphinx

05:30

0

Q: What is a Tourist 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 Tourist Word™. Use the examples below to find the rule. $$\begin{array}{|c|c|}\hline \bbox[yellow]{\textbf{Tourist ...

Rubio

@Deusovi ILLUS(TRIO)US?

er. (illus)TRIO(us) i guess

Deusovi

06:13

@Rubio Nope.

Rubio

06:26

bah. it fits pretty well tho :)

TheGreatEscaper

06:49

Ahhhhhhh the school week is almost over!!!

My first puzzle since the school year started will be up in less than 2 hours!

boboquack

@TheGreatEscaper Woohoo!

Hi @Ankoganit!

Ankoganit

Hi

Is @TGE 's upcoming puzzle for the FTC?

boboquack

@Ankoganit Don't think he's said.

Ankoganit

oh

TheGreatEscaper

07:06

It's a bit rebussy yes, amongst other things

boboquack

My puzzle has been made easier

(Shameless plug)

TheGreatEscaper

@Ankoganit I know you're quite keen on seeing that red room puzzle, but the planned scope of that puzzle is definitely a holiday job

boboquack

6

Q: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a comet!

Ummm... this is a little embarrassing, but I need a bit of help with my homework... I got a riddle from English class, which I have no clue where to start deciphering: Air I miss, comet I be, Round, with a tail at the back. Or is there? No, you may hear... Up I would still be missed, u...

riddle cipher knowledge english steganography

Deusovi

@TheGreatEscaper Any chance you could put it up now? :D

TheGreatEscaper

I'm on my way home

Deusovi

07:12

I need to go to sleep soon and I want to be up for the release

TheGreatEscaper

Phone = data = sphinx's lair, home = Microsoft publisher = puzzle finalising = posting

How long do you have?

Deusovi

It's 1:12 in the morning. I have class at 9AM.

So, it really depends on how much I want to sleep tonight.

TheGreatEscaper

:0

I'll do my best to get it up within the half-hour?

Deusovi

Woo!

TheGreatEscaper

I should be home in 15 minutes, which gives me 15 minutes to put in some letters I was missing

So that's a pretty reasonable timeframe :)

boboquack

07:24

I see a PAT in the last letters of the last three lines... — TheGreatEscaper 25 secs ago

Aha...

One of the tags comes in precisely here and nowhere else.

I could give you a hint here that you might get if you were paying attention at an earlier date... but I won't. Have I said too much?

TheGreatEscaper

i'll check edit history once i post my puzzle

boboquack

@TheGreatEscaper No, it's not that.

That won't help. Even earlier than that.

All I've done for that puzzle is post a hint.

And that edit was just to nice-n up the grammar.

I'm surprised. I thought people would have more to say about programming answers.

1

Q: Computer programming in calculation puzzles

In a recent puzzle, 2 of the submissions were computer programs. Now while I don't have a problem with computer programming, the two submissions used the programs to get around an obvious hurdle in the question. What then, is stopping this submission: Python 3.6.0 code! Try print(ord('X'))#...

discussion

Hello? Anybody there?

Deusovi

07:40

Welp, I'm off to bed.

TheGreatEscaper

:o

it's ready

Deusovi

Oh!

Rubio

I guess sidestepping the question via code is no different from sidestepping the question by any other lateral means, in terms of the validity of the "answer" as an answer to the posed question. lateral-thinking vs. lateral-methodology, but ultimately, if a lateral solution wasn't asked for then it wasn't looked for, and giving one just seems like answering in bad faith. imho.

Deusovi

Then post it!

boboquack

@Sconibulus Why are you unreliable?

TheGreatEscaper

07:40

Yup, exporting to image now!

boboquack

@Deusovi You talking to TGE or Rubio?

Deusovi

TGE.

Rubio

I'm not sure my response there is post-worthy, just saying what's on top of my mind there

TheGreatEscaper

uploading...

Deusovi

Upload faster! :P

Rubio

07:44

(*watches Deus fall asleep . . . *)

Deusovi

Woo!

TheGreatEscaper

0

Q: GRID-THIRTY-SIX

Solve 36 puzzles (or more) to find the final 6 letter answer. (Apologies for low res - I'll work out how to get it higher res)

enigmatic-puzzle visual rebus cryptic-crosswords grid-deduction

Rubio

He's on a 300 baud modem. Hope you don't mind a bit of a wait. Muahahaaa...

TheGreatEscaper

AHHHHHH too much time pressure Deus :P

But there it is

Deusovi

Cryptics! Welp, time to solve them.

boboquack

07:46

Does this call for a spreadsheet?

TheGreatEscaper

Those letters in the purple squares really didn't turn out nicely in my rushed image creation :P

nudge nudge Deus

Rubio

wow. my brain just exploded.

TheGreatEscaper

But while you work on it, I'll work on making it look nicer

boboquack

Wait - there's colours in the purple square?

TheGreatEscaper

?

Only one of them

I just mean, the image is a little blurry/unclear

Rubio

07:48

yeah - the wordsearch-y grids are pretty hard to read

boboquack

TST - tsets?

Green 4

TheGreatEscaper

Bwahahaha nah

Deusovi

Green is definitely a Masyu.

Black is instructions.

(It even says it! BLACK IS in STRUCT, with IONS)

boboquack

Yah

Rubio

red 1A = rook

Sid

07:49

@TGE are you sure, the cryptic clue sin't (5) but (6)?

Deusovi

already got that

boboquack

Is green another cube masyu?

Deusovi

Ah, yeah.

Sid

I thought that should be LEMON?

Deusovi

And it's the "lock" that the purple squaresare the key to.

@Sid How?

Sid

07:51

Ddef? IIRC, Lemon=simple

Deusovi

my progress so far:

ROOK (ddef)
SON (hom)
?

EAT*
?
?

?
FA(-w)N
?

?
HEARTS
?

?
?
?

ANTICHRIST
?
?

spreadsheet?

TheGreatEscaper

all good so far

Sid

Calls for it.

TheGreatEscaper

Yeah, this puzzle might need a spreadsheet

Deusovi

spreadsheet!

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/…

Rubio

07:52

red 2a = eat, 5a=nags, ...

Deusovi

got eat already

boboquack

Deus won't be going to sleep tonight/this morning, is my prediction

Deusovi

it's possible...

Sphinx

3

Q: GRID-THIRTY-SIX

Solve 36 puzzles (or more) to find the final 6 letter answer.

enigmatic-puzzle visual rebus cryptic-crosswords grid-deduction

TheGreatEscaper

I made the purple squares a bit more readable

Sid

07:57

Could 2(b) be SECOND? Ddef?

Deusovi

Second is a flavour?

boboquack

Blue 3 is unusual... it has 4 things

Hi @BeastlyGerbil!

Deusovi

We have to assemble blue into a grid

Beastly Gerbil

Hello, so there's a spreadsheet?

Think second is 'don't recycle for everything'

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