The Sphinx's Lair

Mike Q: PRIMAL
... First (def) = band (RIM) divides friend (P_AL)
n_palum: Why are you dividing me?! ;_;
Deusovi: (First (def)) = (band (RIM) divides friend (P_AL))
n_palum: Stop dividing me it hurts

n_palum

2:30 AM

Copy and Paste it.. or reply to people.. or link

Rubio

and the current CCCC follows that immediately

Mike Q

Looks like the dog has the scent!

Rubio

That context, unfortunately, does not help me. Yet.

Mike Q

That literal text is the context

I shouldn't need to... repeat myself

n_palum

DIVIDING?

Ankoganit

2:34 AM

OOh, DI(VIDI)NG

Rubio

oh. ding as a strike.

Mike Q

* * \o/ * *

Deusovi

gah, I was just about to say that, Anko

nice one

Rubio

I looked at VIDI for a long time too

Deusovi

(and that's a great clue, Mike)

Ankoganit

2:35 AM

I like the VIDI bit

n_palum

D: D: D:

Rubio

But why is carving = dividing. meh

I looked at VIDI three days ago and didn't look at DIVIDING because of that

Ankoganit

Hm so who sets the next one?

Rubio

n_palum does

Deusovi

hm? I thought it was Ankoganit

Ankoganit

2:37 AM

n_palum got the word before

Rubio

I assumed n_palum wasn't just blind guessing

Mike Q

:37932337

n_palum

I'm just upset that I've been done in like this again

Mike Q

If you really want to stump people, you could choose one of Gareth's contact words

Def is 18th century chamber music...

n_palum

No because then he'll get it immediately

So.. do you want me or Anko to take it..

He gave the full explanation before I did

Rubio

2:49 AM

were you just throwing a word out or did you know why it was right?

n_palum

I kept looking at the word Dividing and was like... no way that's 8.. wait that's 8.. is it? and then it clicked finally...

I realized it could be VIDI inside, but my ? was because I was surprised Mike actually did that

Rubio

welp. If you didn't actually have the construction in mind when you said it, Anko goes next. If you did, you do.

n_palum

If Anko wants it, they can have it, otherwise I need like a minute to think of one.. my bank is at work..

Rubio

Contact has started, for any interested

n_palum

I've got a real easy one.

CCCC: Reinvented from riches, it's hosted by Sissel (5, 2, 7)

Deusovi

3:01 AM

I'm not sure that's an accurate definition.

...Or an accurate first word, for that matter.

But the answer is WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

n_palum

Reinvent the wheel is illegal I presume?

Deusovi

("reinvent the wheel" for word 1, my avatar is a character named Sissel and I hosted a game of Wheel of Fortune for fun earlier today)

Maybe "it's reinvented", but certainly not "reinvented" by itself.

n_palum

Oh maybe.. meh it was an on the spot

I also happened to have purchased Ghost Trick earlier so I felt inspired

Deusovi

oooh! thoughts so far?

n_palum

I haven't gotten to play, just downloaded it XD

I'll let you know

Deusovi

3:03 AM

then how'd you know the character name? :P

(if you looked it up, don't do that. seriously. huge spoilers.)

n_palum

I've known it for a while....

Deusovi

ah, maybe I've mentioned that before

n_palum

Curiosity about your avatar when I first came here

Deusovi

or someone else has

n_palum

Nah it was my own doing..

Deusovi

3:04 AM

hope you didn't see spoilers then

that game is really easy to spoil

n_palum

Nah just the name really

Deusovi

even the name is kind of a spoiler - you don't know it at the beginning of the game

n_palum

I'll try my best to forget..

And by 'downloaded' it I meant I stuck the cartridge in to make sure it worked and turned the 3DS back off to charge XD

I was in the mall and Gamestop had a buy one get one on used DS/3DS games and I saw it and was like oh snap, Deus said that's good

Deusovi

it's very good

n_palum

It's a puzzle ish game right?

Deusovi

3:07 AM

yeah, puzzle game

n_palum

Cool.. been a bit since I've played a real good puzzle game..

Deusovi

I can recommend more.

n_palum

Portal may be the last one I've really liked

I'd be open to recommendations although platforms may be an issue

Deusovi

Antichamber, The Witness, Ace Attorney series, Danganronpa series, Zero Escape series. There's also Portal Stories: Mel (and Portal 2, for that matter) if you haven't played those.

n_palum

I've seen a bunch of ace attorney and danganropa.. I played portal stuff

I've debated the witness

Mike Q

3:14 AM

What are your thoughts on Talos Principle, if any?

Deusovi

Oh, and some more: Spikes 'n' Stuff (or anything by Draknek really), The Room series, English Country Tune...

n_palum

If you're asking me, never played

The room?

Not that room!

@MikeQ Never played it. I got the demo and it seemed kinda interesting, but not enough to buy.

@n_palum Lots of people say it's pretentious. They may be right. But the puzzles are good.

Mike Q

It's pretty and it's available on multiple platforms

n_palum

3:16 AM

That's the best room though!

Mike Q

You're tearing me apart n_palum

Ankoganit

Is n_palum dividing you?

n_palum

Sorry Lisa

Mike Q

Regardless of terrible movies and great video games, @deus has the CCCC now.

Deusovi

Oh, right!

n_palum

3:22 AM

I think you mean, great video games, and greater movies

Mike Q

I most certainly do not. Have you watched the entire thing?

Actually, never mind. It's not related to puzzles, and discussing that film does not lead anywhere productive.

Deusovi

CCCC: Some say Rubio is after reward - broken leg led to procrastination (10)

Ankoganit

lol

BOON+DOG+GLE* ?

Deusovi

Yep. :P

Ankoganit

Rubio would be so happy

alright, hang on a sec

CCCC: Used part of clock (6-4)

Mike Q

3:39 AM

-?

Deusovi

SECOND-HAND

Ankoganit

hyphen

yep

Deusovi

CCCC: Strengthen commitment to parts 3 and 4 of a well-known code (6, 4)

Mike Q

Commitment = word?

Deusovi

(@Rubio - pinging you because you may like my previous clue)

Rubio

3:45 AM

lol.

Thanks, I was off elsewhere and missed it entirely

Why is that not 4,4 ;)

Deusovi

...Because the first word of the answer has six letters?

Rubio

But Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right...

oh nevermind ;)

Deusovi

c;

...I thought you would've gotten the answer by now

Rubio

Not actually working on it, in the middle of something else

i get DOUBLE DUTY, maybe, from the wordplay, but drawing a blank on any sort of relevant well-known code.

Deusovi

4:03 AM

you're close

Rubio

huh. I thought that'd be miles off :)

is this a gaming code or something that I may not know?

Deusovi

I can guarantee that you should be fully able to solve this clue

Rubio

mumble. ok. if nobody gets it before I get back I'll noodle on it s'more. Off for a half hour ish

Mike Q

Double word?

Triple duty?

Deusovi

You'll know the answer when you see it.

Sp3000

4:14 AM

Okay got it but Rubio should get the points :P

Mike Q

UPDOWN DOWN

Gotta be that

Double bond?

Deusovi

@Sp3000 You should go ahead and take it just to keep things going.

Sp3000

Fine :P DOUBLE DOWN (ddef)

Sphinx

0

Q: Martin Gardner's "The Twiddled Bolts"

This is a puzzle of Martin Garnder, taken verbatim from My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles: Two identical bolts are placed together so their groves intermesh. If you move the bolts around each other as you would twiddle your thumbs, holding each bolt firmly by the head so it does not rota...

Rubio

THAT'S NOT FUNNY. ok it is.

Sp3000

4:28 AM

Assuming that's correct (no searching for the clue verbatim because I know it happens to have been used by newspapers, and it's hard to come up with a clue at work):

CCCC: Put on a very quiet German song (7)

Mike Q

shylied? lowlied?

Mike Q

4:41 AM

or maybe "German" = DE?

Rubio

ok back. That clue @deus. lol

I was clearly much closer than I thought

huh

A+PP+LIED ? @Sp3000

Mike Q

Ohhh, PP like in musical notation. Clever.

Sp3000

Yup that

Rubio

CCCC: Covered the coals and put up for the night without sign of life, almost. (6)

Sphinx

7:08 AM

0

Q: Where am I waving to?

𝙸 can 𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚎 my hands at you, but I never say goodbye. You are always cool when with me, even more so when I am high! If you want 𝚝𝚘 be 𝚒𝚗 too, 𝚏𝚒𝚗d missing sentence/word. 𝙸𝚝 is just simple riddle so… but now I have to go, b𝚢e… Hint 0:

steganography

Sphinx

8:36 AM

0

Q: In standard isolated lab

(Skip this story, that is not part of question, only might be helpful. Sorry for bad English, you can correct things, no stego this time.) Robot Dan (world smartest vacuum cleaner) and I went to the old isolated lab. It was standard time traveling lab, so kind of cool. However system of time trav...

knowledge

0

Q: technothlon 2014 question

Here is the question from technothlon 2014 paper I couldnot begin how to approach this problem.Any ideas?

logical-deduction

Sp3000

9:19 AM

@Rubio I can think of a word but hmmm wordplay

Rubio

Oh, you. Always solving my cryptics in like 2 minutes. hehe

Wen1now

[OFF-TOPIC ALERT] Hey I don't understand a chess puzzle

I was reading this and clicked this link

But I can't seem to solve the chess puzzle

Sp3000

Well atm I can only thing of one word that fits the def, and for that I'm excited. But no definites for wordplay yet.

Sid

What is the aim?

Wen1now

White to play and win

Actually, wait, it's 'can whites win in this position?.'

Sid

9:26 AM

I am not sure, but I don't think white can win there.

Wen1now

That's what I thought... but it's a puzzle, right? Usually they have unexpected solutions

Sid

Similar colored bishops mating black is not possible if my chess theory is alright.

Wen1now

Yes, but black has a pawn

Sid

As long as black doesn't move that pawn, he is alright methinks

Wen1now

But when you think about it, black has to move the pawn...

Sid

9:32 AM

Well, black can simply move the pawn up and we would have a stale mate I think.

boboquack

Methinks the number of bishops is tightly controlled

Board

Wen1now

Hmm... doesn't look solvable now

Sid

I think it is possible.

Try to move the bishop away from h8 diagonal.

Wen1now

mhm

Does it involve a Ba1 thing?

Sid

Ba1 also works I think.

Crap, no.

Wen1now

9:44 AM

I mean Ba1 at some point

Sid

Start with Be7

boboquack

← 23 messages moved from Codenames

← 1 message moved from Codenames

(interestingly, now I can't undo my actions)

Wen1now

This seems impossible still

Sid

No. This doesn't work.

boboquack

What? No! The room change should have solved it

Sid

9:47 AM

Stalemate looks inevitable.

Wen1now

Oh no, this puzzle is really annoying

boboquack

You don't say

Wen1now

Okay, enough with the snide remarks

Rubio

so - stockfish v stockfish is just playing things out to a draw by the looks of it

Wen1now

Chess engines are infamously bad at this kind of chess puzzle

Rubio

9:58 AM

admittedly so, but thought it worth trying all the same

Wen1now

Yep, sorry if it sounded like criticism though

boboquack

Whee, may as well take Stockfish out to 99 plies

So it is possible

Rubio

Seems so, after a lot of moves

boboquack

(btw depth!=plies, I found out)

Ankoganit

I found the discussion page: braingames.ru/?path=comments&puzzle=556

(probably contains spoilers)

Wen1now

10:11 AM

Not if it's in a different language...

Ankoganit

The title means 'Herd of Elephants', apparently

At least according Google translate

Wen1now

Elephant = Bishop

Ankoganit

How come?

Wen1now

Quoting wikipedia, The bishop's predecessor in medieval chess, shatranj (originally chaturanga), was the alfil, meaning the elephant, which could leap two squares along any diagonal, and could jump over an intervening piece.

Ankoganit

oh cool

Wen1now

10:13 AM

So I think it remained the same in other languages

This is going to keep me awake tonight

Gareth McCaughan

If there's a solution then it has to be of the form "let the BP advance to a3, clear a1 for the BK, allow Ka1, then somehow force the next move to be a2 rather than either Ka2 or Kb1, then give checkmate", and that bit I italicized seems impossible -- the WK can't cover both squares without being adjacent to the BK.

(Of course the above is not in any way a rigorous argument.)

Wen1now

I GOT IT

Gareth McCaughan

go on?

Wen1now

This problem was beautiful

Give me a second to iron out one detail

Woah, we actually need all the bishops

It's really precise too, are you sure you want me to spoil

Gareth McCaughan

no, not sure :-)

Wen1now

10:28 AM

This should definitely be a puzzle

Gareth McCaughan

though I'm not sure I have time to work it out myself (am at work and should really be doing non-puzzling things; or rather, things that are puzzling in different ways)

Wen1now

This puzzle is actually awesome

It has got to be the coolest chess puzzle I have ever seen

Sphinx

0

Q: Horde of bishops

This has got to be the coolest chess puzzle I have ever seen. Shamelessly stolen from here (Which is actually linked from the help center, which is how I found this) which links here. I don't believe anybody has posted this before as a puzzle though. The question: Can white win in this position?

lateral-thinking chess

Ankoganit

...wow.

Wen1now

Well, the answer is so cool it deserves to be a puzzle

manshu

10:50 AM

@Deusovi I said that as a sarcasm :/

Wen1now

How did the topic change so fast?

Sphinx

12:10 PM

0

Q: Who is telling the truth and who lies?

In the question Who lies and who tells the truth?, rand al'thor explain a) correctly, but he did not display his mathematical approach about the first yellow block at b). Could anyone have time to solve with with logical expressions (modus ponens, syllogism, ...) (full answer for b))?

logical-deduction liars

n_palum

12:23 PM

gaMen

gamin'

Har har

GaMen

Hush you spy

But it's always you

12:37 PM

You're the suspect one though

dcfyj

And I was a deserter last as I recall :P

Or a thief, I forget which

You know, those roles really don't help when people think you're the spy before the game even starts lol

n_palum

No, no they don't XD

Or when Lithos and Jan just give incriminating answers but aren't spies

dcfyj

lol

Deusovi

there are too many suspicious people

dcfyj

There's one now!

Deusovi

12:47 PM

Hello!

n_palum

Suspect!

@Deusovi Did you see that dot movement thing I shared yesterday?

Deusovi

Yeah. I've seen it before.

n_palum

Grumbles.. Well okay then Mr Smartypants

Oh also Deus, I've got some bad news...

dcfyj

When your query somehow causes duplicate rows...

Mithrandir

That you're the spy? Because that's not news.

dcfyj

12:53 PM

lol

Deusovi

@n_palum Hm?

n_palum

@Mithrandir No D:

dcfyj

@Deusovi So apparently you won the game that I left haha

Deusovi

@dcfyj yup! that was intense

n_palum

@Deusovi ~~we're stripping your diamond from you~~ Ghost trick cartridge I bought is broke D:

Deusovi

12:56 PM

D:

@n_palum Unbreak it!

*n

unbreak.exe failed

Wait, are you saying your Ghost trick cartridge is suppose to have money and it doesn't and that's why it's broke?

Deusovi

I was about to say that it was available on iOS too, but then I remembered you saying iPhones are butt

n_palum

12:57 PM

Yeah I have a Pixel

@dcfyj Slow claps No silly

Mithrandir

@n_palum well then you should have said 'broken'

n_palum

is broken and is broke are both fine?

Deusovi

I don't think "broke" is an adjective - at least not in "standard English"

n_palum

The cartridge is broke. The cartridge is broken.

Mithrandir

No.

Deusovi

1:02 PM

I do think some dialects allow "is broke", but it's not formal

n_palum

:( I say both interchangeably

Mithrandir

The cartridge broke. So now the cartridge is broken.

n_palum

I say it's broke all the time

Deusovi

(for instance, I'm pretty sure AAVE "allows" it)

n_palum

Maybe it's a Philly thing...

We do tend to say other words weird..

Sp3000

1:03 PM

"The cartridge is broke" makes me think the cartridge is now out busking on the streets :P

dcfyj

@n_palum Whether you say it all the time or not is irrelevant, it's bad grammar lol

n_palum

@Sp3000 Dc already made that joke

Mithrandir

^^

n_palum

@dcfyj Let me live my life

the spy life

dcfyj

@Sp3000 You're behind the times :P

Sp3000

1:05 PM

@n_palum :( I blame not seeing it on me online shopping right now and my bank account will soon actually be broke

n_palum

hahaha

dcfyj

Easy solution, stop buying :P

n_palum

Can't stop, won't stop, gonna make that bank drop

dcfyj

I'm guessing song lyrics?

Sp3000

goes to site to buy ONE thing "Oh hey, there was this other thing wasn't there" adds second item to cart "Oh I should check whether there's anything new for this" adds third item to cart "Oh hey, the site actually recommended something good" adds fourth item to cart

dcfyj

1:07 PM

So basically you need better self-control when shopping :P

n_palum

@dcfyj can't stop won't stop part is but then I improvised XD

Sp3000

I think it's just from me being sad at not being able to obtain this controller instead (JP credit card only :/)

n_palum

Less self control = more fun stuff

dcfyj

@n_palum eh, not really

Mithrandir

= no money

n_palum

1:08 PM

nonsense

Mithrandir

= no food

dcfyj

@Sp3000 What the heck is that even for?

n_palum

I say this all as I only really spend my money on food

dcfyj

@n_palum Well make more then

n_palum

I'll have you know, I save a lot of the money I'm making on coop...

Granted I've got student loans when I'm done... but that's besides the point

Sp3000

1:09 PM

@dcfyj Currently-in-alpha PC version of this arcade game: youtu.be/saDMFEHOc0k?t=24

Gareth McCaughan

1:27 PM

I enthusiastically endorse spending less money on stuff and saving more. (Having said which, I just spent over £2k on a laptop computer so I'm not in the best place to talk. But it's replacing a machine 6 years old and I am generally not very spendy.)

n_palum

@GarethMcCaughan What'd you end up getting?

Gareth McCaughan

Lenovo ThinkPad P51.

Key requirements: (1) Wide-gamut 4K screen. (I do some graphic-design stuff and accurate colours are useful for that.) (2) Non-shit keyboard. (About half the time I'm sat with a laptop computer, I'm typing on it.) (3) Robust and reliable. (4) Performance that won't make me feel the need to get something newer in three years' time.

n_palum

Interesting.. I presume you added a lot to it since they start at 1,300 ish

Gareth McCaughan

They start at £1500 in the UK. (Not being in the US is really sucky when buying computer hardware. Though some of the difference is in taxes that we do useful things with.)

Sp3000

(fyi I do actually throw most of my money in a separate account for saving :P It's just that once in a while I like stocking up on a lot of books and CDs at once)

Gareth McCaughan

1:30 PM

Expensive things I added: 4K screen, 1TB SSD.

n_palum

Ah nice

Gareth McCaughan

Also: not-quite-the-cheapest CPU/GPU, 16GB of RAM.

My old laptop has a 500GB SSD and it's completely full. Though this may mostly mean I should be organizing my storage differently :-).

I was sorely tempted by some other prettier, thinner, lighter, cheaper laptops, but couldn't convince myself that if I bought them they wouldn't be making me feel sad three years down the line.

n_palum

That's fair enough

Gareth McCaughan

@Sp3000 "When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left over, I buy food and clothes." -- Desiderius Erasmus

I enthusiastically endorse those priorities, too :-).

n_palum

Idk... food is pretty good

Gareth McCaughan

1:33 PM

True.

Sp3000

I do the food part but not so much the clothes part usually, admittedly :P

n_palum

I just bought some new clothes yesterday..

Gareth McCaughan

I have no idea yet whether I made a good choice of laptop because the damn thing (ordered 2017-05-17) still hasn't actually arrived. (They were very slow to ship, I think because of supply difficulties with the display, and it's still in transit from China. Last I heard, it was in Germany.)

n_palum

Slowly but surely

Gareth McCaughan

UPS claim it should reach me by close of play today. If so, then I can only assume their tracking system didn't actually register it when it arrived in the UK.

Sp3000

1:35 PM

looks up Desiderius Erasmus

Gareth McCaughan

I actually need a working laptop for tomorrow evening, though in a pinch I could use the old one (which now works only when plugged into the mains).

@Sp3000 You will see that one of his more famous works is called "In praise of folly". To appreciate this title you need to know that in Latin that's "Encomium Moriae" and that Erasmus was a friend of Thomas More. Mmmm, multilingual puns.

Sp3000

> sometimes translated as In Praise of More

Hmmm nice try translators

Gareth McCaughan

There's a lovely story about Erasmus that unfortunately is probably false. So Erasmus prepared a widely-used version of the text of the New Testament (note: this is a highly nontrivial problem because there are lots and lots of manuscripts of various dates and provenances and they all have little disagreements with one another). There's an infamous little bit of the New Testament called the "Johannine Comma" that (unlike anything else in the NT) gives fairly explicit endorsement to [...continues

... the (rather odd) Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It appears in some late manuscripts of the Gospel of John, typically mediaeval translations of the Greek text, but not in anything early, and is generally reckoned to be a late interpolation by people wanting to manufacture support for orthodox Christian doctrine. [...continues

So, anyway, supposedly: Erasmus thought this thing was spurious and didn't belong in the original text, but others thought it belonged in the Bible (because it supports the orthodox position, don'tcha know?). Erasmus responded to this with a challenge: Find me one, just one, Greek manuscript that includes the "Johannine Comma", and I will put it in the version of the text I'm preparing. [...continues

And, supposedly, someone found one and presented it to Erasmus, and he said ok, fair enough, in it goes; but it turned out that this Greek text was a translation back into Greek from a much later manuscript, and may in fact have been made only in order to force Erasmus to put that passage in his text.

But, again, it turns out that this story is probably false.

(Well, I think it's funny. My sense of humour is a little peculiar, though. My apologies to anyone who was simply bored by the above.)

n_palum

It's quite an imposing block of text

Sp3000

I found that pretty amusing, the challenge at least :P

So does the phrase appear in the actual text?

Gareth McCaughan

1:50 PM

Depends on what you mean by "the actual text".

It appears in some later NT manuscripts that are translations from the original Greek.

It doesn't appear in any "original" Greek manuscript (i.e., any dating to the first 4-5 centuries AD).

Sphinx

0

Q: Fill this 5x5 grid

One day, a friend has shown me a 5 by 5 grid, challenging me to fill it with numbers from 1 to 25. Obviously, it is not simple because there are some rules: The number 1 is placed in the center of the grid The numbers are placed in ascending order Only two movements are permitted: moving two bo...

grid-filling

Gareth McCaughan

I think pretty much all scholars agree that it almost certainly wasn't in whatever the first version of the Gospel of John actually was.

But that first version is surely irrevocably lost in the mists of time and all anyone can do is to reconstruct it as best they can from the later copies.

Sid

@Wen1now That is so beautiful. Everything comes into play perfectly..

Transcript for