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4:39 AM
0
Q: FInd the next six numbers

ApuroopGiven is a series of numbers and you are supposed to find the next six numbers in it. Find the next numbers in the series 0,1,3,4,7,7,9,11,15,14,,,,,,?

 
 
3 hours later…
7:28 AM
0
Q: The case of the world’s easiest puzzles

humn   Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.   We’ re so glad you could attend.    Come inside, come inside.    Step inside, hello! We’ ve the least amazing show.   You’ ll enjoy it some, ...

 
8:06 AM
^ Nobody stopped me:
Sep 24 '16 at 6:31, by humn
Really trying to keep from posting this, under . World's smallest example of ___what type?____ puzzle:
 
 
3 hours later…
10:41 AM
0
Q: This puzzle design was a DISASTER!

TheGreatEscaperAs any member of the PSE community knows, grid-deduction puzzles really aren't my forte. In fact, I'd like to share one particularly disasterous attempt at designing a Slitherlink puzzle. Disclaimer: This is a fictional story So, I was working on a slitherlink late one night, and when I woke...

 
10:51 AM
@TheGreatEscaper "grid-deduction puzzles really aren't my forte". No, they're not. They're your piano, which expels nothing but a cacophonous mess when you set your pudgy fingers to it :P
 
 
2 hours later…
1:17 PM
0
Q: EEEEK! My puzzle disappeared!

Mithrandir $%Insert30characters,please..$

 
@Sphinx that looks kinda spammy, doesn't it?
 
A bit
At first when I went to the link it didn't show up lol (the image that is)
 
Right, I.stack.imgur.com died for a bit
 
I see it's got xkcd on it and 553. So I looked at 553, 535 and 355 and none of those seem particularly relevant :P
 
Heh.
I realized that I typed xk by accident, so I continued :P
 
1:20 PM
lol, red herring!
 
It's not more than an easter egg.
 
I figure it's probably an anagram, but I'll leave it for someone else, it's yet another thing I'm not good at solving.
 
...Nope
Heh, my phone saw through my URL trickery. </mostlikelyunrelated>
 
Your phone sees the image links?
lol, I didn't know I could click on the blank image to pull up the correct one
 
Heh
 
1:24 PM
I found it by looking at the edit history (which seemed to be the obvious place to look on a blank puzzle :P)
 
It took me a while to figure out how to make it blank :P
...But there is no edit history
 
You know what I mean. Click edit to "edit" it
 
Mhm
 
I do that with many a suspicious puzzle (since I encountered one that did have something in its edit history)
 
@dcfyj I mean, everything is not as it appears, especially in URLs
 
1:28 PM
Not sure what you mean, but ok
 
...that's the point...
 
sure...
 
We are on Puzzling chat :D
 
Not true
We're in a Puzzling chatroom :P
 
1:36 PM
Well, it kinda is lol
 
2:01 PM
(In all actuality, the missing puzzle is actually pretty easy.)
 
You're biased though, so you have an unfair advantage :P
 
3:00 PM
1
Q: Welcome to the American Puzzling Championship!

Kit-Ginevra*It's been a thrilling few days of puzzling here at the American Puzzling Championships, where representatives of the 48 contiguous states have been sharing their mental abilities. Here's some of the highlights of the competition. Pictures will be available in our online storage album. *Maine's ...

 
There are exactly 30 characters(letters+numbers) in the imgur. Do we simply need to enter those in there? :p
 
 
1 hour later…
4:19 PM
@Randal'Thor I am still laughing at this comment :p
 
@Tech @Beastly not exactly an accident. It's just irrelevant.
 
Ah. Okay. I am still struggling to find the question in there? :)
 
... I don't know. The question I was going to ask disappeared :/
 
4:40 PM
@Mithrandir yeah that would have been one hell of a coincidence
But don't worry, the second comment I posted just inspired a new idea for a puzzle :P
 
Fascinating.
 
It looks like a hole on a sheet of paper
 
That sounded so sarcastic Mith :P
?
 
I thought, its another blank image :p
i.stack.imgur.com/BYKLJ.jpg this one. But seems not. Its invalid
 
its rare to get all caps
 
4:48 PM
There's one I found at my first attempt
Taking first letters .. but again looks irrelevant
 
@BeastlyGerbil one of the ones in this puzzle is all caps...
@Techidiot o_o
 
Are you indicating this is an immgur maze?
 
Yes.
 
I am thinking the hole as a key-hole now
 
On the door?
 
4:54 PM
okay that helps, I was looking for an anagram :P
 
Yeah.
 
@BeastlyGerbil nope, just had to run and do something quickly.
@Techidiot yes. But that's irrelevant.
 
my problem is there aren't any lower case letter
 
Hmm.. May be there is only a single imgur?
 
Reload the page a few times...
 
4:55 PM
I can see JPG on the right side
 
oh yeah
Surely there is some sort of pattern though'
 
Heh. That URL really threw people off ;)
 
also I just noticed (this is comepletely irrelevant) that the picture's code is k8y which when pronounced says 'KATY'
 
But its k8YRz ?
 
Yeah I know, but the first part
 
4:59 PM
I'm going to sit here and watch you try to figure it out :P
 
Krzy -> Crazy
?
 
@Techidiot Do you realize how hard it would be to get an imgur link to signify a word?
 
@dcfyj But one can make a puzzle out of an imgur right?
And yeah, its irrelevant anyway :D I am just shooting the arrows in dark
 
I'm currently trying to solve two puzzles, play a game, make a puzzle and talk in chat. This is hardwork.... :P
 
What if its a cipher text? :-/
 
5:03 PM
@Techidiot Making a puzzle out of an imgur image is one thing, but a link?
@BeastlyGerbil I'm trying to make one and work :P
 
Oh, an evil puzzle may make that happen :D
5z8X7 could be a key to the cipher :P
 
8 mins ago, by Mithrandir
Reload the page a few times...
 
kfrep?
 
KFREP
 
 
5:05 PM
how did you do that when its not a gif?
 
@BeastlyGerbil secret
 
Which browser shows that? :O I can't see that in Firefox
 
 
STOP BEING ONE STEP AHEAD OF ME! :P
 
Looks like that's as far as I'm going :P
 
5:07 PM
(that was fast)
 
I noticed the 1 imediately
just took a bit to find the 3 is all
 
I am still stuck at how refreshing works? Which page should be reloaded?
 
@Techidiot the door
 
Nope. Doesn't work for me :X
 
First letter say literaturestackexchange this is an ad for it
@Mithrandir is that the final answer?
 
5:09 PM
Yup
 
@Techidiot They light up red for a second
 
That was short :P
 
So basically I solved it but didn't solve it :(
 
You got 2 of the images
 
5:10 PM
2?
 
Yeah you posted them here :P
 
I am afraid but this looks like browser specific puzzle. @Mithrandir or anyone else, can you confirm if it works under firefox?
 
I found the door long before anyone else lol
 
The image is a GIF.
 
@Techidiot I've only chrome on here
 
5:11 PM
Well that wasn't that hard to find :p
@Mithrandir but... it says png?
How?
 
very carefully
 
Who's writing up the answer as well?
 
@BeastlyGerbil Imgur doesn't care about the extension. It'll always display the actual image.
 
It waits 20 milliseconds, switches to red, waits 20 milliseconds, switches back.
 
(Also, I did. Didn't realize you were working on it - sorry!)
 
5:12 PM
Cool never knew that
 
@Deusovi Sneaky sneaky Deusovi :P
 
@BeastlyGerbil I was lazy
 
Doesn't work with Firefox. My workplace doesn't offer anything else.
 
hmm thats unlucky
 
The gif? Use gif-explode.com to see all the frames.
 
5:14 PM
dramatic name
 
@Techidiot I can pretty much download whate'er I please, I just never bother to install FF since chrome was on here
@Deusovi nifty
 
I don't understand why Mith's puzzle got 10 upvotes before there were any answers.
 
@Deusovi because people liked the idea of the invisible puzzle...
 
@Deusovi I reserved my vote, still haven't cast it actually. Not even sure if I will...
 
@Deusovi also, what's wrong with ads? The CMs told me to work on site promotion :P
 
5:23 PM
anyone know of an online domino grid solver?
 
I just thought it was an unsatisfying "payoff". The puzzle was short and it seemed... low-effort.
 
or dominosa if you prefer
 
The gif was kind of interesting, but the rest was... ehh.
Nope, not aware of one, dcfyj. Sorry.
 
Maybe I'll create a better one later...
 
Boo, building one by hand is brutal...
 
5:26 PM
Also, the red herrings mildly annoyed me. IMO, a good puzzle uses all of its information.
 
What red herring? O_o I tried to only put Easter eggs in, but not herring.
 
xkcd is a herring
 
no its a website actually :P
 
It was meant to be an EE.
 
@BeastlyGerbil In this case it's a herring lol
 
5:28 PM
The rest of the letters were unused.
And yeah, the XKCD part. I expected it to involve extracting words from XKCD comics or something.
 
@Deusovi ...isn't that not allowed?
 
@Mithrandir He's not saying it's not allowed, he's just saying he didn't like it
 
@Mithrandir Having your own puzzle pieces on other sites isn't allowed. But relying on outside information is. (We use Braille and Morse all the time.)
 
*goes to build better invisible puzzle*
 
@dcfyj I made a whole puzzle out of imgur links. :)
of course it took forever to collect them all
 
5:40 PM
lol, nice
 
6:01 PM
14
Q: Intermittent Failed to upload image; imgur is rejecting the request

reneJust now when trying to upload an image with the image uploader I'm greeted intermittently with the following error: Failed to upload image; imgur is rejecting the request That error comes from the POST on http://meta.stackexchange.com/upload/image?https=true I initially was on an non-encr...

I'm getting this too
Can anyone else upload photos?
 
haven't tried
 
The image wasn't showing up when I tried to upload stuff, but it uploaded - if I went to the URL it gave me, I could see it. — Mithrandir 1 min ago
 
just wondering if this is cross site or selective
 
6:27 PM
Any help with the rest of the cryptics ?
 
6:39 PM
Ok apparently the S3 for US-EAST1 has an issue which is why we can't upload images
 
 
1 hour later…
7:42 PM
0
Q: What's in the cave?

Clint EastwoodWe hide together in our cave Those who seek us must be brave Most who find us choose to sleep And those that don't, their widows weep We die but not by hangman's noose and club or blade won't free us loose Spoiler in edit mode:

0
Q: What's her response?

william wangI am a software engineer and old-fashion person. And I fell in love with a smart beautiful girl. We have known each other for years. Today, I finally asked her out for a date, but she did not give me her response immediately but she gave me this: ****-/*---- /----*/****-/****-/*----/---**/*----/...

 
8:03 PM
Almost done with my puzzle... I just have to check the second half's validity
Should I just assume it's valid and post it? I don't really feel like solving it lol
 
8:20 PM
Done, time to post ^^
T.T
I hate you imgur :(
I guess I'll post it tomorrow morning then...
@BeastlyGerbil guess what? I'm having the image upload problem too :P
 
8:38 PM
Wow no surprise there :P
 
Imgur links across the network are broken.
 
tbh it has served us pretty well. For me having been here a year this is the first time there has been a problem. Thats a good record compared to what it could be
 
Testing...
> Failed to upload image, please try again!
 
> Failed to upload image; imgur is rejecting the request
Which is sad, because I just made a nifty logic grid puzzle
AK!
 
>.<
 
8:43 PM
:P
I doubt a 12 year old could bring down the entire imgur network here
 
The AKV is spreading! Run for your lives!
@BeastlyGerbil I was referring to the removed comment
 
Oh :P
 
o_O
 
I hope that the imgur issue (I'm just going to call it ii from now on) will be fixed tomorrow
Does anyone know how long these iis last?
 
Indeed, I want to post my puzzle, which sadly requires an image unless I figure out how to do it with mathJax
 
8:49 PM
Amazon is working on it.
They think they've identified the root cause; not revealing further details yet.
They think it's coming from one specific place.
In the meantime...
Test:
 
Huh, you can still click on an already uploaded image and still see it on imgur
 
@dcfyj is the uploading that is the issue
 
@Mithrandir That's 97.6% useful
 
Imgur is rejecting new images
 
@dcfyj I know
 
8:51 PM
:P
 
Did anyone work out any more of these cryptics btw?
I want to try and finsih it by tonight
Although I can't upload a image of the grid >.<
 
1 is A+CUTE
 
Which ones are unsolved?
 
*runs away* Cryprics!
 
8:52 PM
@dcfyj see bottom of my answer
@Volatility nice! Thanks
 
0
Q: Find the 8-digit number

Alexandros 9A secret number has each one of its 8 digits colored either blue or red. Here are some clues: 1. All digits from 1 to 8 appear in the number. 2. The first two digits are not consecutive. 3. The last three digits are odd. 4. The number of blue digits appears at one of the middle two digits. 5...

 
3. LEI?
A sleigh carries a ring of flowers
 
heh
nice
 
I don't get it, though it fits :P
 
Not sure if carries is a hidden word indicator though
And it would use your (3)
 
8:57 PM
If in doubt, with cryptics about, ask @Deusovi, don't be gloomy
 
I haven't really seen him today
 
he came in once when he posted that answer
 
Right
 
Center
 
8:58 PM
12 may be PILLAGES but I'm not sure what the wordplay would be
 
and its 7 which isn't available
 
EEEEEK! My puzzle is HNQ!
 
and doesn't fit....
 
"Takes spoils"
plurial
 
still doesn't fit
 
9:00 PM
PLUNDERS then?
 
the 8s have 2nd letter l and penultimate o, or second e and penultimate n
^
 
LO(O)TS
 
Nice....
 
Anyhow, I need to head out
 
MathJax is titles, so that I can post blank titles...
 
9:01 PM
bye!
 
@dcfyj Adieu.
 
so 2, 5, 8 and 11 left
and enumerations 8,5 9 and 8 (not that order)
11 is something to do with odd letters
2 is sommething to do with even letters
ooooh should have 15k powers tommorow!
 
congrats
What are 15k powers?
 
I'll be able to.... PROTECT QUESTIONS!!!!!!!
Fear me!
 
in The Reading Room, yesterday, by Mithrandir
@DForck42 MY REIGN OF TERROR HAS BEG- *cough* *hack*
 
9:24 PM
2 is R(EVEN)ANT
 
9:35 PM
I believe 11 is A(L_ O_)UD, although I'm not familiar with AUD as an abbreviation for "auditorium"
@BeastlyGerbil ^
 
9:57 PM
It's... alive?
...Or not?
It is!
 
@Volatility thanks, night now for me so I'll add that tommorow morning. Hopefully imgurs fixed by then
Night all!
 
night!
 
@BeastlyGerbil Night!
@BeastlyGerbil It sort of is, maybe
 
10:12 PM
Test:
Works!
 
10:36 PM
Okay, @Mithrandir - you literature lover, you - a quick literature-loving puzzle for you:
What is the word for someone who loves literature? (not a joke)
 
@humn bibliophile
 
Noun: litterateur (plural litterateurs, feminine litterateuse or litteratrice)
  1. A person engaged in various literary works: literary critic, essayist, writer.
  2. 1969, Victor Ernest Watts (translator), Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius (author), The Consolation of Philosophy, Penguin Books, book III, chapter v, page 88, footnote 4:
  3. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Roman philosopher, playwright and littérateur, was the boyhood tutor of the emperor Nero, and later on his adviser.
 
...Nobody knows that word.
 
Not if I kill you now.
 
I'm impressed I remembered bibliophile.
 
10:38 PM
Yes!
I'm a self-labeled logophile.
 
Anyway, it's 12:38 AM here, going to bed.
 
Sweet dreams, glad I caught you
 
11:02 PM
@humn
that trick to put a spoiler and non-spoiler text on the same line
I love it. I'm so stealing that :)
 
@Rubio , free for the taking. Thanks also for touching up yesterday's(?) augmented-assignment answer
 
Yeah that one was fun. I'd forgotten what ~ did in MJ context, and was quite confused at first by what your \= was doing.
 
Hm, what trick?
Ah, the Mathjax thing
 
yeah
 
Redefining short mathjax commands can make life easier, and inscrutable
 
11:08 PM
Yeah once I figured it out I was half tempted to remove the ~'s but .. meh. The humn homage that was lifting \= verbatim seemed entirely fitting, so I left it
deus, solve the C4 already ;)
That thing is driving me nuts
 
(By the way, MathJax hax, brace yourselves for a freely click-navigable state-machine, to appear as soon as I make it into a bone fide puzzle)
(where you can move a ring of Tower of Hanoi from any stick to another)
 
I wouldn't be surprised if you made a Turing machine in MathJax.
 
Have you seen my first forays into that, with my puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/48912/… puzzle's hints?
That was a bit of exploratory work to verify it could/would work - and indeed it does
 
Damn, how did I miss that?!
 
MathJax, as it turns out, ends up getting a bit hobbled by execution limits (and, conceivably, by the 30k post limit) vs what it might do otherwise
@humn I love how that presentation ended up working out - it just seems natural, and so fitting for that puzzle
 
11:15 PM
It completely feels like a mail interface, Rubio.
And that's as good a compliment as conceivable.
 
:)
Someone in here gave me the idea of "Mark Unread" - I will have to dig that back up and credit them eventually
boboquack, it was
 
Speaking of which, @Deusovi, I hope you saw your credit-in-a-comment at the Case of world's easiest puzzles:
For the record, thanks to Deusovi for turning f from simply awful, in its original form, to perfectly simple, in two ways — humn 12 hours ago
 
I did!
 
I wanted to include it in the statement, but stylistic concerns got in the way.
 
I saw that too, and remembered reading that conversation when it happened hehe
 
11:18 PM
I defy anyone to come up with an easier cryptic clue.
I mean, the answer is in parentheses!
 
Me! (1)
hehe
 
Oooooah,,, and I! = 1 <--- notice edit (forget imaginary i, not true, that's Roman and self I)
 
Nah, it'd be hard to do better
I was wondering why you switched I to i ... I was like, mmmm, no that doesn't work
 
got confused with i^0 = 1 for a sec
but if you knew that so quickly, have you seen i^i ? it's a real goodie
 
Yeah!
 
11:22 PM
Where? (not where is it, how did you come across it?)
 
Hm. I'm sure I've met that before, but now I'd have to think about it ... I was just contemplating how a^0 a^1 a^2 is a really interesting series for a=i
 
I don't remember where I came across it, to be honest
Complex exponentiation is weird.
 
wow. Ok having just looked at that, I don't think I've seen that before. It ... hurts.
 
i've been tyring to turn it into a puzzle, probably better that i can't anyway, now that everyone has seen it
 
 
11:25 PM
the more solutions the merrier!
and a = i = a^0 + a^1 + ... ?
@Deusovi , I like the picture for complex logarithms, like a certain spectacular weed that grows around here
 
ok I have to go off and be an adult for a while. (Avoid this as long as you can, all you youngsters. It's a drag. hehe)
back in a while
 
(bye for now, Rubio)
 
See ya!
 
This picture of complex log doesn't quite do it justice, but i couldn't find one that does:
better:
 
...Oh.
 
11:29 PM
best:
 
Ooh, I like that one.
 
the way it furls a spiral is downright 3-D
While you're hear D', I'll taunt your for not solving my weekend mathematics puzzle
 
Hm? Which one?
 
4
Q: Superellipse on a square budget

humnWhat’s better than an ordinary ellipse?   A super ellipse, of course. And what’s better than a superellipse?   That’s right, a superellipse and a square. But who can plot both of those luxury items?   Anyone, with a single function you can make at home. Here are implicit function plots of a su...

Between R'a'T and you, D', my mathenders have been toppling faster than I can post em
Until now. The one in the wings is what they're leading up to.
from the workbook, a version too tough for puzzling:
 
Whoa, that's pretty cool.
I like the yin-yang-esque shape.
 
11:38 PM
stumbled on it by accident.... see the moon(s) too?
actually, the graphing program errored to produce the complete effect, here's what that looks like with the error circumvented:
 
The vertical "lines" of negative space are also interesting.
 
right, the clean version isn't nearly as artistic
 
Ah, alright - that was due to rounding error, then.
 
yes, when nearing infinity/infinity
and here's another serendipitous result, from changing the underlying function by the slightest amount:
 
Oooh. Pretty.
 
11:43 PM
I was going for a wrought iron fence look and knew i was in the neighborhood when luck got the rest of the way
so much fun exploring how to insinuate surprising results into puzzles
the latest pictures need to be wrestled into a form that can be clued at all
the superellipse/square puzzle has plenty of clues but might still be too unusual to be solved very quickly
 
"Unusual" is definitely a good description of it.
 
like those onederland/nonederland that you solved
 
Yeah, I was reminded of that by the mention of complex exponentiation earlier
 
it's so simple after all, but has nothing to compare with
I'd still like to see your solution say more about how you put the pieces together. (or does it now? peeking)
... or do you even remember anymore?
 
I think it was mostly hints from you in chat.
 
11:54 PM
Something clicked big time, in two stages a month or two apart if i remember
 
The first "click" was that they're numbers in some weird base.
 
!
that originated from a conversation with you about base phi
 
I think the second came from drawing out 3, 4, and 6 on triangular/square/hexagonal grids.
(Using "0" as "turn" and "1" as "move forward, then turn".)
 
That would look great in the answer
...maybe I'll illustrate it...
 
Unfortunately, my image editing skills are too poor to make it look good
 
11:56 PM
And images can take a long time.
 
Yeah.
 
Tell you what, let me know if/when you feel like adding text and i'd be happy to add a picture or two
 
I'm not sure what I'd add, though.
 
okay, maybe the other way around
i can draw some vector-like polygons and see if you'd like to caption them
(there'd be no rush, i'm working on that wrought-iron stuff right now)
 

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