The Sphinx's Lair

« first day (1094 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2845 days later) »

Sp3000

02:42

@CalvT Some feedback: I feel that a lot of steps were underclued, and a lot of information was unused. In particular, going from the image text to (step 2 in Deusovi's answer) is a lot of arbitrary leaps to perform at once, and there's barely any hinting/confirmation that that's the correct thing to do. There's also some inconsistency as to which parts require the key and which parts don't.

boboquack

02:54

@n_palum Sp, Alconja, TGE and I (I'm not sure about others) are the 'night watch'.

n_palum

@boboquack "The ones who watch"

I agree with Sp on that ^^^, I think that's why Gerbil and I preferred the 1st one more, it was cohesive and flowed.

Deusovi

@Sp3000 My main problem was what I have as "step 5".

(Also, re: the first puzzle, I really didn't like the "text hidden in profile" thing. Profiles can be changed.)

n_palum

03:43

Yeah that's why they had Gerbil put it into the answer (shouldn't be a requirement for the puzzle to work though)

ffao

what about the external site in the first puzzle?

n_palum

03:59

He "claims he's maintaining it for the foreseeable future"

ffao

the same could be said for profiles

assuming he does intend to maintain it now, he might change his mind later

Deusovi

04:27

@n_palum Just caught up - haven't watched the preview, but wow.

Sphinx

05:10

Q: Famous People Known By 3 Names

Famous People Known By 3 Names 2 CFV - 6,9,7 - female 14 MDS - 4,6,6 - female 16 JSP - 5,6,6 - female

story

Rubio

05:24

@Sphinx I'm not sure if this is a puzzle.

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

05:47

Q: Clear board in Othello (Generalisation)

Based on Clear board in Othello If we have an $2m\times 2n$ Othello board ($m\geq n\geq 2$), and the centre $4$ squares have the usual starting position, then for what all values of $m$ and $n$ can we clear the board (make the board entirely covered with one colour, either black or whit...

strategy game board-games

Rubio

06:41

@Puzzling—BOUNTY! Best advice i can give is to keep in mind self,surrounding, past,present and future.all in different perspectives.insight that should be kepped to oneself to not be manipulated. while being aware. The answer is yes and no. Depending on how much is known.

2 hours later…

Sphinx

08:17

Q: German Tank Problem

"Alright," says the commander gruffly. I try not to stare at the biscuits in his beard. "This week we've captured 5 German VX-Tanks, with serial numbers numbers 3, 5, 13, 22, and 27. They stopped producing the VX line years ago, although they're just now being deployed. The first tank they made h...

probability

Sphinx

09:03

Q: Puzzle of the Day

Source Can you find the hidden man in the picture below?

riddle lateral-thinking visual

Techidiot

09:47

@Rubio Agreed...That is very very very trivial. It's like picking some names off wikipedia, enumerating them, providing initials and gender and boom .. done.

Sphinx

Q: 25 stones, find the 3 most heavy by dropping them

One has 25 stones and needs to find the 3 heaviest. Cannot use any measuring tool except for taking at most 5 stones and dropping them from a certain height and visually determines the weight by the speed with which they hit the ground. At least how many drops one has to make to find the 3 most h...

weighing

3 hours later…

Sphinx

13:19

Q: Relocate one line to find the equality

just Relocate one of the line to find the equality. Tricky! Note: No Inequality sign is accepted!

logical-deduction lateral-thinking roman-numerals

1 hour later…

manshu

14:30

in Cryptic Workshop, 2 mins ago, by manshu

Victor loses his head in the bull ring (5)

I think that the answer is either TORIC or TORUS. What should it be?

damn...it is INNER. But TORUS fits better.

n_palum

You cannot really make torus from Victor

@Deusovi the preview will make you say wow again.. and I love that everyone's freaking out about topaz's voice

manshu

Yeah but when I anagrammed ICTOR then I got TORIC and when I searched TORIC then I got TORUS :p

long shot.

But INNER is too trivial

n_palum

That's a stretch for torus and would be a bit unfair imo

Sconibulus

how is it inner?

manshu

yeah. I agree.

I don't know

But it is the answer all over the internet

Sconibulus

14:38

victor->winner->inner makes sense, but I don't get the def

manshu

I am having the same problem

n_palum

15:17

in the bull ring would be 'inner' I guess.. but it's a very bad def

manshu

Another one I found something like this which makes more sense with the answer INNER:

Victor heads off for hit near bullseye (5)

n_palum

That's a little better

manshu

yeah

Sphinx

15:57

Q: How can I swap opposite corners on the same face of a 2x2 cube?

I've been experimenting with using Y-permutations to solve the 2x2 cube as described here. I ended up with the cube solved but for a single face where the opposite corners were swapped and disoriented. I managed to solve the cube, but I wonder if there is a shorter algorithm to accomplish this ta...

rubiks-cube

incesterror21

Good day

n_palum

16:14

GAmen

incesterror21

How is everything?

n_palum

I'm well, yourself?

incesterror21

Frustrated trying to make puzzles work!

And I should probably take a shower. I smell like a rat.

Sphinx

16:32

Q: Is there a simple algorithm for solving Kami 2 puzzles?

I'm finding my life has been consumed by Kami 2, partly because I seem to have achieved some "insight" and am able to solve the puzzles reliably, almost always on the first try. But whatever this "insight" is, it's not enlightenment. I don't know why or how I'm doing it, I just am. I wonder i...

pattern geometry algorithm graph-theory

2 hours later…

Mithrandir

18:07

@GentlePurpleRain @Sconibulus I was talking about comments, sorry for the confusion.

A: A guide to moderating comments

When should moderators edit comments? Almost never. Comments have no publicly visible revision history (the changes are logged in case of abuse, but these are only visible to moderators). Therefore, it is critical that moderator edits do not misrepresent the author's meaning or intentions. Edits...

ffao

18:35

so now along with the candidate that wants to ban himself, the other one can't even tell a comment from a post

what did we do to deserve such a pool

Mithrandir

...what? O_o

ffao

are my jokes that bad? :(

Mithrandir

I'm not feeling great, so it's probably just me :(

Sid

19:06

@ffao there is a leadership crisis in the whole world. What did you expect? :P

2 hours later…

Sphinx

20:40

Q: Is there a common way to solve tetris like cube puzzles

I have a cube puzzle similar to bedlam puzzle. It is 4x4x4 and has 12 pentacubes, 1 tetracube. Is there a simple way to solve them? I hope tags are correct :)

geometry three-dimensional

3 hours later…

Sphinx

23:49

Q: $100,000 prize for this math puzzle

Question: Find the function f: U=f(V) where V and U are vectors of size n. ∀ i: V(i), U(i) ∈ N & 1 ≤ V(i), U(i) ≤ 28 & U(i) ≠ V(i) U(i) ∈ EQAQ([J-3]:[J+3]) | EQAQ(j) = V(i) where EQAQ is a circle of 28 symbols in the following order: 1, 10, 19, 28, 2, 11, 20, 3, 12, 21, 4, 13, 22, 5, 14, 23, 6, 1...