The Sphinx's Lair

@Rubio I see :)

@Sphinx do you guys need a hint about what to do next? there's more to that...

12:57 AM

@Rubio Not any more. Congrats @jafe. :)

@Alconja (I gave him some of those points just now hehe - and figured just saying something would quickly put him over the top.) As Gareth said, well deserved congratulations.

I was the straw (and yes, by way of you saying something :P). Easy enough to do given that I'm not on here as often as I once was, so I haven't even seen half of their puzzles (which means I no doubt owe several more up votes at some future point when I go digging).

congrats @jafe

1:17 AM

3 points apart...

Q: First usage of "honey pot" or "honey trap" in the context of espionage

4:20 AM

2

I have seen both "honey pot" and "honey trap" used by le Carre and Forsyth in their novels, and as both are ex-spooks, I am assuming this was the terminology. It describes a person who is used as a sex object to attract an asset. Also a source of many a man's downfall . On the other hand, it h...

came across this and it reminds me of the Deusovi Honeypot (cough)

Sid

5:29 AM

@OmegaKrypton ah ha. The plot thickens

5:58 AM

@Rubio Maybe STATIONARY (def: still; from STATION (=post, first) + A(-i)RY (=lofty, without ethIcal heart)

yah

please hold while I put you through to the cryptic clue construction department...

Sid

Why is post first equal to station?

post = station. it's first, that is, before a_ry.

A military location assignment is a "station" or a "post"

(for one example among others)

Sid

Oh. that type of post.

6:04 AM

Niggle, niggle. It's not the "post" that is missing the I. And "(station + airy) without I" doesn't really work either: It still has an I, namely that in "station".

uh, wha?

oh

hah

You could technically parse it as "Lofty (with station first), is without I"

sorry you're right. that got backwardsized in my head.

that's what I get for composing cryptics on the train hehe

Well, never mind. I'm just grumpy that I didn't get it. :)

Alconja's reading is clearly what I had in mind. Totally. ;)

6:06 AM

Yes, that would work. Are you a lawyer, Alconja?

No, just weaseled my out of my fair share of slightly sketchy CCs. :P

Fair enough.

7:19 AM

CCCC: Band admits blowing up damn explosive (8)

Q: The distribution of the yield

8:40 AM

0

Story: After a successful robbery $160$ robbers distribute among themselves $209$ handbags. Afterwards, the boss checks if any of the robbers has $20$ or more handbags. If he finds the first one, he must give all his handbags to other robbers, where he may give no more than one han...

logical-deduction combinatorics sequence

Q: Restoring 3D Tetronimo Puzzle

9:00 AM

2

You won't believe this. I worked all night to make a new 3D tetronimo puzzle, and just as I was about to save the final version there was a power outage! Now I can't remember what the final clues were supposed to be, and I'm far too busy to try and figure it out myself. Can someone please help...

grid-deduction three-dimensional polyomino tetris

enigmatic-puzzle word-property

11:40 AM

0

Q: Grammy Winners Grading

Prologue. I am bored. I have divided the Grammy winners in the past few years into the following tiers, according to a specific and objective criteria. How did I categorise them? The Classification - Tier 0 Swift, Smith Tier 1 Glover, Lipa, Hansen Tier 2 Musgraves, Hernande...

wow, the sphinx is real quick this time...

"working for the generalist countdown"... aren't both of those tags are already over 200? is there a tag missing?

@jafe see the enig-puzzle tag?

It has 1258 usages

i mean yes, one or more tags is/are missing

11:46 AM

So once the enigmatic veil is lifted, you are going to re-tag?

yes

Ah

hm, I don't think omitting tags is recommended, even for enigmatic-puzzles (which this one doesn't seem to be, unless the whole puzzle text is actually a cryptic message or something and not the word-property puzzle I see)

@EriktheOutgolfer understood. maybe omitting the enig-tag is better. done :)

yep; the enigmatic-puzzle tag applies in situations where the solver must deduce what kind of puzzle they're facing, this is clearly a word-property puzzle :P

11:50 AM

Philosophical question: Shouldn't anyone who sees the puzzle after it is solved see it in the same form (with some minor corrections, perhaps) as whoever solved it first? In other words, isn't re-tagging a bad idea?

@MOehm agreed, was thinking of it

yeah, including all tags that apply helps categorize the post better

I'm not saying that it should always be so, I'm just asking for opinions. (That requirement would obviously stop your crusade to get some Generalists to PSE, so maybe there's room for interpretaion.)

I am not sure myself, but i recall reading a meta post that encourages us to retag after solving an enigmatic-puzzle, but couldn't find it

I think I've been told that enigmatic puzzles should include all applicable tags

12:00 PM

really? not sure... nonetheless, ill retag after you guys solve it

Speaking of the "generalist countdown" sudoku crosswords word-problem are tags that could easily get over 200 which aren't included in the meta post.

none of them are in the "top 40"

they would be if they got to 200 :)

50-part crossword series, who's up for it?

if.

:P

12:02 PM

@jafe cryptic or not?

cryptics have their own tag

i think it has even less puzzles

[cryptic-crosswords] is at 118, [crosswords] at 150

i'm taking a break from crosswords, been into this 3d stuff lately :P

:P do not spoil anything

@jafe me, after that.

There's no 3d-crossword tag yet. (And it would take some time to get it to 200.)

i've been trying to make a 3d akari (also known as lights-out) but it proved more difficult than i thought

some day!

hm... "3D crossword" sounds fun... :P

(like, a letter can be used by at most 3 words?)

12:07 PM

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/… :)

Across, down and ... rearwards?

@jafe just wanna quote that lol

@MOehm the wording was "away"

but... that one is impure!

it was "away" in the one site i found that has 3d crosswords... not sure if it's standard

hey, mixed-breeds are puzzles too :)

but you can't call it just a "3D crossword" anymore :D

12:09 PM

@jafe and often nice ones

@EriktheOutgolfer true

@OmegaKrypton rot13(Jbhyq vg fhecevfr lbh naq punatr nalguvat gb yrnea gung "tybire" vf na Ratyvfu jbeq? V rkcrpg gur nafjre vf gung vg jbhyqa'g, ohg V whfg gubhtug V fubhyq purpx.)

oh you're right! @GarethMcCaughan

mmm what do we have here? ;-) ;-)

rot13(vg jbhyqa'g) @GarethMcCaughan

@EriktheOutgolfer free red herrings ;-)

whoops, I see hungry people are approaching you quickly, hide!

12:17 PM

thanks for reminding ;-) (@Duck)

OK, thanks. (Wondering whether I should delete my comment or not; it plus your answer maybe gives a little information, and I'm not sure whether it's more unfair if (1) only I have that information or (2) only TSL readers have it. My guess is that the amount it helps is rather small, and it seems less improper to leave things a way that don't benefit me specifically, so I'll leave it there.

)

the amount it helps is rather small. yes to that. rest assured ;)

Just got a reputation jackpot ;)

congrats!

congratulations!

12:22 PM

where?

@GarethMcCaughan or post it over there...? that way everyone knows :D

riddle mathematics no-computers optimization grid-deduction logical-deduction wordplay

Adam, UK

777 1 2 26

@Erik yeah, maybe that's best.

and i'll answer the same way ;)

I meant edit it into the post, but eh :P

I added a comment.

12:25 PM

thanks saw it

@OmegaKrypton I only see a +2 over there... maybe he meant the bounty is going to be awarded later ;P

i think he meant the 777 which gives a jackpot in slot machines

@jafe Yep

John Dvorak

It's also a jackpot for an attacker if it's the chmod value.

Hehehe mission successful!

12:37 PM

um... why do I feel like the pattern is supposed to be way easier than what I'm making it to be...

to my puzzle?

yep :P

I've only found that [gets muted before finishing sentence]

getting too close to the truth, no doubt

raise your hand if you see something blurry in the pattern :D

raises hand

12:43 PM

um... abandon puzzle? lol

@EriktheOutgolfer construction done... cluing :) will post once this grammy puzzle is solved :)

ooh

LOL you actually went and constructed it?

yep 3*3*3 tho :)

and the answer is...

12:45 PM

@EriktheOutgolfer while you guys were so immersed in my puzzle i went to make another one :)

### ### ###
### #I# ###
### ### ###

yay I already figured it out before posting!

no checkmark, 0/27 grids correct

12:56 PM

hm, from what I've seen 3D crosswords are generally 5×5×5 with this structure:

..... .#.#. ..... .#.#. .....
.#.#. ##### .#.#. ##### .#.#.
..... .#.#. ..... .#.#. .....
.#.#. ##### .#.#. ##### .#.#.
..... .#.#. ..... .#.#. .....

this one's gonna be new then :)

clue progress: 1/3

so... it's been an hour and a half, and the pattern is nowhere to be found

so... it may be because Deus isnt awake yet?

but... he's always watching...

#BigBrotherIsWatching...

1:12 PM

@jafe I'd be interested...

Who pinged him!???

No... the end of my puzzle

(also hello! I have been summoned)

...

hello... (in fear)

CLUES FOR THE [REDACTED] NOW!

@OmegaKrypton maybe you shouldn't have said the... D word...

>w<

1:14 PM

Not the legend himself with his puzzle cutting Excalibur!

5

Q: Grammy Winners Grading

Prologue. I am bored. I have divided the Grammy winners in the past few years into the following tiers, according to a specific and objective criterion. How did I categorise them? The Classification - Tier 0 Swift, Smith Tier 1 Glover, Lipa, Hansen Tier 2 Musgraves, Hernand...

word-property

suicidal challenge @Deusovi

Deus is silently typing his answer...

T-30

wait that's already T+30

eh? (sounding stupid, which i am)

"T" is usually when the spaceship launches

it's short for "Time"

see? i am stupid

1:20 PM

hm, I had an idea, but it would put Glover at tier 3

yeouch??

gtg bye for now

something I just noticed is mumbles... woah

@Deusovi speak out/ partial answer... im interested

I think he meant it's evidently wrong

1:24 PM

no, it's not a partial answer because it would be verifiably wrong, and therefore not significant progress towards a correct answer

ok never mind then, rot13 here or at my home?

"my home" of course

♦ OK's 屋企(home)

Home of Omega Krypton, enthusiastic user of Puzzling Stack Exc...

whoops too late I already took a plane to burgle your house

My original guess was that it was the number of substrings that are common 3-or-more-letter English words (with some sort of objective rule for what counts as "common"):

GRAVE/RAVE, HER/AND, ???, KIN/KINS, BEN?/NET, SON/???, SHEER/RAN, TRAIN/RAIN

but that breaks in a number of places, so it's pretty clearly wrong

word enigmatic-puzzle anagram crossword-clues

@EriktheOutgolfer is that a revenge for... [redacted]?

12

Q: A Smuggled List of S'S

Smuggled this strange list from [redacted] 's place. Maybe he is making a puzzle. Who is the victim? Scarlet covers Swindler's imprecation Sour disordered equipment Smash journal Sinful America Surgeon oath Storms carport Working for Generalist Countdown - a...

@Deusovi yep, it is wrong, sorry

@Deusovi yeah pretty sure everyone thought of that, clearly fails

@OmegaKrypton nah I'm not going to harm you picks lock

because I picked it! :D

1:33 PM

:D cya!

1:46 PM

hello @jafe

1:57 PM

The other obvious guess that turns out not to work -- which of course was the point of my question about GLOVER -- is that tier 0 = English word already, tier 1= anagram of English word, tier 2 = not even that. That fails because GLOVER is a word and as it happens ARSHEEN is too. It's also obviously wrong because OK said that there could in principle be more tiers. And because the boundaries of "English word" are unclear, though I expect we could find some list of words that includes [ctd]

... GROVEL but not GLOVER, etc.

But HENNAS is probably less common than GLOVER so even without the requirement that the criterion be "objective" I don't fancy it.

no comments

@GarethMcCaughan

I wasn't expecting any :-).

yeah good luck even the Deus didn't manage to solve that

he hasn't solved it yet. For that matter, I also haven't solved it yet. I will be surprised if it's so hard as to be beyond either of us in principle, though either or both might fail to spot the trick.

2:12 PM

yeah that's a bad sign he usually solves those in an instant lol

unfortunately, there's not much data to go off of here -- you can't even use the chosen words as hints

i will categorise more at a later stage :)

well, it's not like there are a lot of tags that (1) could plausibly apply to this question and also (2) are likely to help with the Generalist thing.

(by which I mean, I think there is exactly one such tag)

(which is why I was thinking along the lines described above)

double meaning... that can also mean "more examples" :P

ah, yes

3:11 PM

What do yous think of this question now? puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/86063/…

I think the question is still awfully vague. (Also, I'm not sure what "enclosed" means.)

I think "find some sort of geometrical object, parameterized in a reasonably natural way by four dimensions, such that there is exactly one such object where the numbers are 7,3,6,2 units" is an interesting challenge, but there's a bit too much guess-what-I'm-thinking about it.

E.g., here's a boring answer. Our object is a four-dimensional cuboid. The four given dimensions are its lengths along its four axes.

I bet that isn't what OP had in mind, but on the face of it it looks to me as if it satisfies the given conditions.

3:33 PM

Yeah, I doubt that whatever they meant will lead to a good puzzle.

1

Q: Rearranging work-load

Rick works for a firm and has to resolve numbered cases on each day. He knows already number of cases for each day for $N$ days. Let list $L$ denote the number of cases he has to resolve in $N$ days. Now to balance work-load, he can procrastinate and choose to postpone upto $K$ cases to the next ...

mathematics algorithm

4:06 PM

@GarethMcCaughan @Deusovi @others added some more clues to the Grammy puzzle. have fun :)

4:16 PM

@OmegaKrypton no!

it should be "@EriktheOutgolfer @ jafe @others"!

:D

ok thanks

4:32 PM

Well, LITTLE certainly blows my conjecture even more thoroughly out of the water than it was already blown.

PotatoLatte

o/

Q: How to make the two important years 1492 and 1969 with a minimum number of 1s

5:39 PM

0

Using only 1s, make 1492 and 1969 with the minimum number of digits Rules: allowed operations +, -, ×,:, ^, (), and ! (factorial). Concatenation of the original digits is allowed, but not (1+1)1=21. Note, the () can also be used as binomial coefficient. Example: $\binom{11}{1+1}+1111^{11} +(11+...

formation-of-numbers