The Sphinx's Lair

Sphinx

1:52 AM

0

Q: The sheep and the lions: is the conventional answer right?

I am challenging the solution to this classic riddle. Read the link if you are unfamiliar with it. The bottom line of the riddle is that an even number of lions won't eat the sheep, and an odd number will. I fully understand the recursive reasoning behind this. But suppose there were an even n...

Rubio

3:12 AM

testingsomethingdon't mind me

Sphinx

6:14 AM

0

Q: What word answers this riddle of letters and numbers?

As you enter a clinic, you catch a whiff of a disgusting 2156. Oh, it must be that 351 that 123456 was eating for lunch. Eww, it's starting to 624, 425. Oh hey 16. Smith, didn't hear you come in. No, we didn't 4621 on your 324, it was already dirty when we came in. Oh, yes, we threw away your 351...

word

Sphinx

7:07 AM

1

Q: What Is A Plus Word™?

In the spirit of the What is a Word™/Phrase™ series started by JLee, a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Plus Word™. Use the examples below to find the rule. $$ % set Title text. (spaces around the text ARE important; do not remove...

pattern word-property

Rubio

7:33 AM

@BeastlyGerbil You should add to your answer why the title fits

Sphinx

7:47 AM

0

Q: The following puzzle has no description. (#1)

Admittedly, this one is fairly easy... I hope it isn't too bad, it's a first puzzle. Whether it is bad or not is up to you. Since I suck at embedding images here it is. Edit: Thanks suomynonA for the fix. :P

enigmatic-puzzle

Beastly Gerbil

@Rubio ooh does the title give 100 as well!?

Rubio

The title is pretty much always part of these puzzles in some way. Sometimes by sharing the same trait as the words themselves, sometimes in other ways. I won't comment beyond that, except to say that (as always) the title here is not gratuitous.

Beastly Gerbil

Hmm... doesn't add up to 100

Adds up to 230 (-TM)

It's probably something to do with 100

Ooh the first letters add up to 105. Not that then...

Sphinx

0

Q: Last few letters and numbers too easy? How about this?

19bhmmf Note: Yes, that is the entire puzzle. It's longer than you think.

enigmatic-puzzle

Deusovi

8:02 AM

@BeastlyGerbil ..."plus" refers to addition.

Beastly Gerbil

Is it that simple?

That's what got me thinking about a1z26 to start

Deusovi

I don't see what else it could be.

Beastly Gerbil

Ok well I'll add that for now unless @Rubio says otherwise

Rubio

nah. I think this may be a bit unfair actually

Beastly Gerbil

Oh so it's not that

Deusovi

8:05 AM

Huh.

Rubio

It's apparently nowhere near as uniform as I thought

Beastly Gerbil

Obviously not :P

Rubio

The intent was A+ = 100%, so the puzzle title - which deviates from the norm in that it says "What Is A Plus Word" rather than the usual "What is a Plus Word" - was supposed to hint at "A Plus" = 100

Beastly Gerbil

Oooh I see

Deusovi

Ah, clever.

Rubio

8:07 AM

but yeah, it seems all kinds of different interpretations and markings are used for the "A+" - A* for Brits, apparently?

Beastly Gerbil

The reason I didn't get that is we don't use As and Bs anymore

Rubio

Ohh. Heh

Deusovi

I've always heard "A+" being in the ~97%+ range.

And wow, that's a lot of nonletters.

Beastly Gerbil

It's changed to 1 to 9 - 9 being A**

Rubio

@Deusovi I'm seeing 98-100 for that in some places, and in others, strictly for >100

Beastly Gerbil

8:08 AM

Well I'll add that to my answer as well

Rubio

Locally, it was only used strictly for ==100

though nowadays who knows :) it's been a while since I was a student

That was supposed to be a quickie anyway. I just thought of the play on the title, and spat it out; took about 20 minutes to make

Beastly Gerbil

We're the first guinea pig year for the new GCSEs. It's all changed now, our teachers don't even know what to expect

Rubio

I'm curious though, did you notice the 1.5 semi-red-herrings in there?

Deusovi

Lots of EST words.

Rubio

the .5 being the large number of "est" endings

Beastly Gerbil

8:11 AM

Er no?

Rubio

the 1 being ... well ... maybe you missed it entirely

Deusovi

No idea.

Beastly Gerbil

I thought of A1Z26 before even clicking on the puzzle :P so that was the first thing I tried

Rubio

Hah

I may add one non-100 word and repost it as a different puzzle, then, lol

Beastly Gerbil

Uh I hate mobile. Can't look at the puzzle and chat simultaneously...

Deusovi

8:13 AM

Yeah, I'm on mobile too

Beastly Gerbil

It really needs so much work done on it

Rubio

How does the shading in the title look for you? It should be either dead on, or either one pixel unshaded or one pixel overshaded into the data

depending on your device and on the phase of the moon

Deusovi

One pixel unshaded for me

Rubio

Android?

Deusovi

iPad.

Rubio

8:15 AM

huh. I thought iDevices rendered exactly; interesting

I had to split the difference on it, so that's as good as it gets. hehe

Sp3000

8:32 AM

Can't get FLATTER out of my C4 head

Rubio

huh. how are you getting that?

Sp3000

Fine (F) + latter (second option)

Rubio

Ohh. Makes sense.

Sp3000

But nvm it's B (second option) + RIGHT ("OK then...") = fine @Volatility

Rubio

heh - well done.

I wouldn't have connected BRIGHT and fine

Weird. Someone downvoted my PSE Assessment Exam. I wonder why.

Sp3000

8:44 AM

Hmm no idea, looks solid enough at first glance at least

Rubio

Deus made fairly short work of part 1, despite a blunder in one of my cryptic clues for which I hang my head in shame. The next bit is where it gets a little more interesting

oh @Deusovi - QUESTIONTOANSWER (or ...OF... for that matter) isn't right btw. "for" isn't being anagrammed. (Even my blunders have limits hehe)

Sp3000

I saw the first part when you posted and decided I was too lazy to research :P

Rubio

formatting in chat sucks. lol

Sp3000

I'm assuming you want OR in the middle

Rubio

Not many other choices. hehe

Volatility

9:16 AM

@Sp3000 yep!

Sp3000

:) nice

Volatility

I wanted to do something like a guy asking a "smart" person, "it's B, RIGHT?", but I couldn't get the surface to work

Sp3000

Eh, clue's taking me too long so let's just archive dig for the next one

CCCC: European Union leader caught hemisphere's (Western half's) enhanced interrogation perhaps (9)

TheGreatEscaper

9:58 AM

is the bracketed part important?

Rubio

hey it's Houdin...i mean, @TheGreatEscaper! howdy

TheGreatEscaper

Heya Rubio!

Sp3000

10:33 AM

Bracketed part is part of the clue, if that's what you mean

Techidiot

@Rubio both these profiles are created 29/28 days back puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/34009/pie314271 and puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/34043/jan-ivan suspicious? Or was he really that fast? :-/

Speaking about this answer

Rubio

10:50 AM

pie is new to PSE, but not new to the network

It may be something to watch, but doesn't seem conclusive enough right now to really excite suspicion

Techidiot

Hmm. Yup

Btw, are you going to drop another mail for your puzzle? :) I am trying to take out the meaning out of the word Discount but failing to do so

Rubio

I'll be honest, there's really not much more I can add

Techidiot

That's the only important word which seems to be repeated 2 times in the message

Probably a tag? :)

Rubio

"Every word is important" is, um, important. :)

Techidiot

I am not sure which direction to go, stegano, cipher, wordplay or something else

There are loads of adjectives being used

Rubio

10:58 AM

Wordplay is specifically given.

Techidiot

I can see words forming between two words, but no real pattern there

Rubio

Ok I left a clue for the answerer as a comment, something that wouldn't make sense as an email. Feel free to see what you can do with it

Sphinx

11:56 AM

0

Q: A riddle about a place contains the treasure

There is a secret of death and a secret of life Both are held by the family of clark's wife

rhyme

Silenus

1:45 PM

@Sp3000, EUPHEMISM = EU+P(HEMIS)M

Sp3000

Yup

Rubio

"leaders" might have been better. I meant to ask about that and got distracted :)

oh. wait. hah, I see what you did. nvm :)

I like that

Silenus

CCCC: Part of a man’s tattoo in writing (8)

Rubio

@Techidiot I knew I should have gone with "Henry" hehe

Sp3000

@Silenus PROS(TAT)E

Techidiot

1:58 PM

Haha :p I was counting the stars to make sure, but doesn't match with potter :D

Silenus

@Sp3000, you got it. Maybe I should have went with "Part of a man's ink in writing".

Sp3000

:P

Sphinx

2:29 PM

0

Q: Can you find the missing lad and the treasure?

$\mathtt{Once \ upon \ a \ time, \ there \ was \ a \ young \ sailor. \ This \ young \ sailor, \ however, \ was \ a \ pirate. \ The \ scourge \ of \ the \ seas.\\ \ You \ may \ have \ heard \ of \ him \ - \ the \ infamous \ Blackbeard!\\ \ With \ his \ band \ of \ cutthroat \ pirates, \ he \ sta...

enigmatic-puzzle treasure-hunt

Mithrandir

@Sphinx Yes, I may have gone overboard on the MathJax. As I said, it was necessary to disguise the part that needed it.

Rubio

Your "grid" isn't a grid, on my screen.

Mithrandir

No?

Hmm.

Screenshot?

Rubio

Problem with MathJax is there is no particularly good way to force a fixed width font

Techidiot

Neither on mine

Mithrandir

2:35 PM

I didn't use MathJax on the grid.

The grid is Unicode.

Techidiot

Mithrandir

Huh. That is not how it looks on mine o_o

2

A: Is there Markdown to create tables?

You can create table by using Box Drawing Unicode. This answer helps the new users about the required box-drawing Unicode uses with Unicode-Key. For creating Table, the following Unicode are essential: 1. Two lines: Horizontal ━ U+2501 Vertical ┃ U+2503 2. Four ...

Techidiot

Mithrandir

Well, there are image versions included :P

Rubio

It's a bit of a mess. :)

Mithrandir

2:37 PM

Rubio

the second one is no better for me either

Mithrandir

Well, this is why it was a good idea to include image versions too :P

Rubio

If you wrap it all in <pre> ... </pre> it may work, I suspect it will

Mithrandir

@Rubio ...It's in code formatting. That's why it's gray.

Rubio

oh - i didn't look that closely

Mithrandir

2:39 PM

The wordoku image version is missing the dots, but...

Sphinx

0

Q: Tiling with T-tetrominos in gravity

The goal is to tile all the white squares using T-tetrominos when there is gravity pulling the tetrominos downwards like regular tetris. If you have played tetris, it is obvious what gravity means but just for clarity here is an example: The red one is not allowed because it will fall down. Th...

logical-deduction tiling

Mithrandir

Sp3000

CCCC: Spooner's present spread very quickly (4-5)

Techidiot

I can see some colored letters which may form the tinyurl

Mithrandir

(I spent 6 hours creating that puzzle. If something goes wrong, I am going to smack my computer.)

Techidiot

2:47 PM

M two gq27rva

Mithrandir

Both station 1 and two are hidden in the note. Remember that, @Techidiot.

Techidiot

Yeah

I somehow got spain :p

Sp3000

(Sleeping so I won't be able to confirm C4, but it should be pretty obvious when gotten)

Mithrandir

@Sp3000 Night!

Rubio

seeya @sp3000

Mithrandir

2:49 PM

@Techidiot Too early, man! See that that comes after the two? :P

Techidiot

Yeah.

Mithrandir

Since most of them are Vigenered with the key as the previous location, it's best to go in order.

Techidiot

WTH! :( I came accross a bloody and an aweful tinyurl yuksss

Mithrandir

?

o_O What did you do?

Techidiot

Mebbe :-X

Mithrandir

2:54 PM

O_O

....No.

That is not where you are supposed to go.

Techidiot

red herring into which many are going to fall :p

Mithrandir

changed is to maybe

@Techidiot For looking at that, I'm going to give you a hint - Bat bogey.

Techidiot

Not sure what that means, a spell?

Mithrandir

*is quiet*

And Potterhead could probably tell you :P

Sphinx

0

Q: A simple nonogram

Solve the nonogram. (Click for a larger version.)

nonogram

Rubio

3:18 PM

@Sp3000 Post-Haste. (Present [HOST] <-(spoonered)-> spread [PASTE]; very quickly [def.])

Ankoganit

paste=spread?

Rubio

yeah... think, say, tomato paste

Ankoganit

oh duh

I thought of post-haste but could parse that part

Rubio

Ok I may get grumbles about one part of this when it's solved but I'm gonna go for it

CCCC: Most flower growers, we hear, make fun of a wrong snake. (5,8)

TheGreatEscaper

Has anyone else been having trouble with loading images?

viewing the images in puzzles on PSE has been a fuss for me for a few days now.

Mithrandir

3:32 PM

@TheGreatEscaper yes, it's Amazon's fault.

S3 was being fickle and disrupted half the Internet.

Ankoganit

@Rubio WATER MOCCASIN? (Water=flower grower, Mock (homoph.) a sin)

Rubio

Yup, that's it

(Most flower growers [WATER(s)] we hear [hom.] make fun of [MOCK] a wrong [A SIN])

and the intended meaning of flower here was 'river' :)

Ankoganit

CCCC: Stupid like 19 (7)

eh, that got posted twice

Rubio

yeah that was weird

Ankoganit

It sometimes happens with a slow connection

Ooh @mith you are a mod now!

Mithrandir

3:39 PM

Yep :D

Rubio

who are the other lit mods btw?

Ankoganit

Emrak and Hamlet

Rubio

no nod for rand huh

@Ankoganit This answer is, clearly, "teenage". ;)

Ankoganit

lol no

Rubio

wait wait wait

isn't Deusovi 19? I see what you did there! muahahahaa

(this is too fun)

Ankoganit

3:43 PM

YOU SAW NOTHING

Rubio

(flagged)

Mithrandir

(declined)

Ankoganit

I made a better clue for Deus some time back:

Nov 19 '16 at 16:18, by Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor You inspired me to make another cryptic:
Fake video about American puzzler (7)
:-)

Rubio

oh. nice.

ASININE

Ankoganit

yep

thanks :)

Rubio

3:49 PM

hm, let's try this-

CCCC: Diaper my son, maybe after a snooze. (6)

Ankoganit

I like that surface reading hehe

Rubio

I just winged that. Felt good, actually. :)

Sid

NAPKIN - Snooze=Nap, My son=Kin. Diaper_Def

@Rubio ^

Rubio

Very nice Sid :)

And welcome back!

Sid

Um, I don't really have time to make a good one now...

Give me a minute.

Rubio

3:59 PM

Are you still on hiatus or are you back back?

Sid

Half hiatus. :-)

Don't quite expect me till April

Rubio

aww. OK :)

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/49086/somethings-missing is that answer now complete btw?

Sid

CCCC: Sensitive Bigot. (10)

Oh, Yes. It is correct. I have been terribly busy. Forgot to accept. Thanks for the remainder.

Have a nice day all.

Rubio

Well. That's an interesting c4.

lol

glanced over, saw that. I like what Firefox thinks of us PSEers.

Techidiot

MONOMANIAC? ddef?

Rubio

4:09 PM

I don't see how that fits either

Techidiot

Or enthusiast?

Rubio

I don't see how that fits either, either. ;)

Techidiot

:p

Mithrandir

4:24 PM

@Techidiot did you use the Vigenere link I provided?

Techidiot

Oh no. :) Its not opening up at my end

Mithrandir

Ah, Martin got the crossword.

Techidiot

Yeah. :) I will still edit my answer and make the clues proper. He has the answers anyway.

Mithrandir

4:40 PM

Have you figured out Bat Bogey for the first station yet?

Techidiot

Nope. Apparently, I watch and forget about the movies :)

Mithrandir

Movies? MOVIES?

*facepalm*

Anyway, these people might be able to inform you about Bat Bogey things:

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/198/mos-eisley

Techidiot

Ok let me give a try

@Mithrandir What was that? :p

Bats coming out of nose :O

Mithrandir

@Techidiot they failed

Look at my latest message there.

Techidiot

@Mithrandir Yeah, I got the hex thing. But not sure how to take a hex value from Mtwo

or M2

Mithrandir

4:51 PM

You pointed out different letters have different colors, right?

Techidiot

Yeah

Mithrandir

So take the Hex value of the M and go from there.

Techidiot

M -> 4d and then two -> 4d2/4dtwo lol

Deusovi

@Rubio Nope, I'm 18.

dcfyj

Youngun :P

Rubio

4:58 PM

Hehe, that was fun(ny) though.

GentlePurpleRain

Is there any way a Cryptic Clue can be only two words and be anything other than an ddef or an &lit?

I think you'd need more than 2 words.

Deusovi

Not that I can think of.

Unless you've got some weird thing going on.

GentlePurpleRain

I'm guessing that this one might have to do with some form of the word/sentiment DISCRIMINATE (although that is too many letters).

Techidiot

@Mithrandir I guess the sudoku yields an imgur with JPG letters in there.

Rubio

INTOLERANT

sensitive in the allergy sense

Mithrandir

5:12 PM

@Techidiot nope

GentlePurpleRain

The problem is that all these words describe a bigot, but they don't mean "bigot".

Rubio

Intolerant \In*tol"er*ant\, n.
An intolerant person; a bigot.
[1913 Webster]

Silenus

Regarding the CCCC, I'd investigate the period.

Rubio

You don't think it's INTOLERANT?

Unfortunately Sid is not going to be around any time soon, by the sounds of it

Silenus

@Rubio Oh yeah, that seems like the answer.

Rubio

5:17 PM

Ok this one is Deusovi's favorite kind. ;)

I'm sure he'll hate it when he sees the question. I hope he'll actually like it when he sees the answer.

CCCC: Legal team ate turned-over turnover; ingested a bit of mead, kept last bit for last, odd bits not used were tossed out the window. (13)

Gareth McCaughan

oh gods it's another thousand-word essay cryptic :-).

I bet the answer is DEFENESTRATED

Rubio

Yeah, this one was extended for the sake of the surface. Apologies, but I liked how it ended up.

Gareth McCaughan

but haven't made any attempt to figure out why, apart from the obvious definition, as yet

legal team: DEFENSE (I guess) ate TART rev. -> DEFENSTRATE; ingested E, a bit of MEAD, -> DEFENESTRATE; kept last bit (D) for last -> DEFENESTRATED

Rubio

yup. Simple, but fun.

(I hope.)

Gareth McCaughan

"odd bits not used" seems to mean only that the odd-numbered letters of MEAD aren't being used, which is a bit redundant but does help the surface reading.

Rubio

5:22 PM

Well, I figured they should be accounted for somehow. Maybe that wasn't needed.

"odd bits tossed out the window" felt wrong, and not doing anything with them felt more wrong

Gareth McCaughan

yeah, "odd bits tossed out the window" would mean using the odd bits of MEAD or maybe the odd letters of BITS or an anag of BITS or something; that wouldn't do at all

but I think you could have just not mentioned the "odd bits"

Rubio

yeah

I just happen to love that word, and the fact that that word is a thing. :)

Gareth McCaughan

oh yes, it's a very nice word

Rubio

also "were" because the literal usage is pretty archaic. :)

Anyhoo. You're up

Gareth McCaughan

yeah, I know. Thinking.

Sphinx

5:31 PM

0

Q: The Shifted Music Library

This is a spin-off and heavily inspired by Levieux's puzzle that I enjoyed helping answer/solve. And I've never used ciphers or things like this before so I wanted to learn some new puzzles :) I have an alphabetically sorted collection of singles in my library. Unfortunately somebody shifted thi...

cipher pattern knowledge

0

Q: The Unclad Riddle!

I may be black, though, not the snake. I may bounce, though, not the ball. Always tied, but, not the cuffs. Not even the boots, but quite often tall. Call me a swine, I really don't care. Both XX and XY may hold my possession. I will lay back there, quietly as always. Will...