The Sphinx's Lair - 2019-12-12

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12:12 AM

0

Q: Is it OK to use specific users as part of a puzzle mechanism?

I am currently working on a series of mini-puzzles I’ll be posting on the main site, and I have an idea for a mechanism that utilizes features of users all across the Stack Exchange network, specifically their avatars and user IDs. Is this allowable? This meta post suggests that it is fine to use...

discussion questions users

1 hour later…

1:40 AM

@GentlePurpleRain yes, and this.

Also I freely admitted up front it was probably a terrible clue. I stand by this :)

2 hours later…

3:44 AM

0

Q: Zed's E-mail: My Good Ol' Uncle Sugar

My friend Gabby and I constantly look out for each other. Just the other day, she received a strange message from what I thought was an uncle of hers. "Problem is," she started with a worried look, "I don't even have an Uncle Sugar! Do you think someone is trying to scam me?" I tried my best to a...

knowledge cipher lateral-thinking story

4:39 AM

@GarethMcCaughan Right. And the surface works just fine with "finger".

5:29 AM

0

Q: See me from your view point - As see by the rest

See me from left, I appear as spectacles. See me from right, I appear as butterfly. See me from top, I will connect to just one. See me from bottom, I just a wave.

5:39 AM

Well, I mean, you don’t really have one clubbed finger. But I concede the point.

6:31 AM

0

Q: Reconstructing the results of a 5-team soccer tournament

5 teams are playing in a soccer tournament. Each team plays each other team once. Each game has 3 outcomes: team 1 wins, draw, team 2 wins. The winning team receives 3 points, while the losing team receives 0 points. In case of a draw, both teams receive 1 point. At the end of the tournament the ...

logical-deduction

5 hours later…

11:40 AM

0

Q: word lists for general knowledge crosswords

When using software to create a grid for a cryptic crossword, most general-purpose word lists will do because you want most of the answers to be headwords from a dictionary. But I'd like to compile a general knowledge crossword of the kind that Kate Mepham does for the Telegraph, so the answer mi...

1 hour later…

12:42 PM

0

Q: What technique I should use now?

I am stuck here. I don't want solution for this, I just want to know the name of technique which will be used here to go ahead.

1 hour later…

1:57 PM

I have a hat now

:o

2:46 PM

0

Q: What is a Aged Rope Phrase™?

If a phrase adheres to a certain rule, I call it a Aged Rope Phrase™. Text-only version in CSV form: "Enamel Tar","A Chaplain Labouring" "Enable Lane","A Paleface Meets Minor" "Beer Nice","Therefore Flows Typo" "He Houses Four","Five Fog Lot" "Adequate Ford Mesh","Fifteen Smog Tint" "A Lethal...

pattern word-property

@Puzzlers hello everyone

I am in dire need of a puzzle

wherein instead of a nonogram, the puzzle is a yesyesgram

3:13 PM

is a yesyesgram a nonogram where the clues are actually the opposite and would reveal the negative of the image?

I have no idea

it just sounds like a cool name

you have 100% artistic license in designing a yesyesgram

3:24 PM

might do that, though it needs to be more interesting than just a nonogram with a reversed image

naturally - in the meantime, I've made a nonogram

in the process of posting it atm

3:38 PM

Wow, Hex made pretty quick work of my phrase puzzle

@Avi something about really liking the metric system…

It's a small step from a nanogram to a nonogram ...

3:59 PM

:o

having trouble making a logical solve of my nonogram :(

but i'll keep chipping away at it

oh, I'm silly

there's a logical exclusion

GentlePurpleRain

4:19 PM

Ok, here's an easy one (probably):

CCCC: Crazy Horse prop (5)

i'd say leader

but obviously not

@GentlePurpleRain Is it SHORE? anagram of horse + def is prop

GentlePurpleRain

@hexomino Correct.

is shore a prop??

how...

I learned that today, too. See def. no. 2.

4:28 PM

ah

Added another hint to my cipher puzzle.

looking for a test solver for a mostly solved nonogram

except, I'm silly

x.x

nevermind

CCCC: Poles not included in Poland (6)

D:

this nonogram is requiring me to use braincells

rude

I haven't used those in a longggg time

5:05 PM

holy moly

that was hard to deduce

5:24 PM

is it ok for it to require backtracking

to some extent

i.e. 3 possible placements of a square

2 of which shortly lead to dead ends

in any case, there's a unique solution

99% of which can be deduced using no backtracking

wait, no

no-no gram detected

5:50 PM

1

Q: An Ailing Assassin

Since moving to the countryside, I've taken up a side job as an assassin. While camping out with a doctor, they told me that I had contracted an illness. However, since I didn't take any money with me, they handed me this puzzle instead: They told me, "Solve the nonogram, and you'll know where...

visual rebus grid-deduction nonogram

I toiled a lot just to be able to put this line "This puzzle can be solved without guessing." in there honestly.

1

Q: An Ailing Assassin

Since moving to the countryside, I've taken up a side job as an assassin. While camping out with a doctor, they told me that I had contracted an illness. However, since I didn't take any money with me, they handed me this puzzle instead: They told me, "Solve the nonogram, and you'll know where...

visual rebus grid-deduction nonogram

Hm. Trying to solve that with the bucket tool from MS Paint surely is putting the no-no into nonograms.

draw lines if you have to

I can also make the lines solid, if you'd like

I'm going to have dinner now, so I let someone else solve the nonogram. :)

solid version posted in comments

6:05 PM

arcghipelego added another hint

Ive still got nothing.

archipelago*

Who is a wise man? He who knows he knows nothing.

you can try the nonogram instead

near the bottom left side it becomes like a hard sudoku in terms of solving difficulty

i cant load the nonogram image today, my proxy isnt working

:(

6:19 PM

may get to work on it this evening.

:)

6:33 PM

to make up for you not being able to do the nonogram, here's a CC:

Old fruit begins decay (5)

kinda sketchy

but it has a nice surface

hmmm, your clue gives me an idea for a riddle

:o looking forward to it

@Deusovi what's your favorite kind of puzzle(s)

gotta find a way to make it not super easy though. Right now all ive got is a little couplet with your clue as the first line.

the answer was DATE + D_ for the record

clever, im pretty new to CCs

also confirms that my idea was not the answer haha

6:47 PM

just making sure you don't use that as the answer to your puzzle lol

Gareth McCaughan

7:08 PM

@Avi The single pre-shaded cell is deliberate, right?

Yes

Gareth McCaughan

7:22 PM

I'm getting what seem like some pretty easy contradictions. I bet the mistakes are all mine, though.

how so

the right side should be pretty simple to solve

then work your way up to top center

But tedious to fill in. :)

then to bottom left

then bottom center is sudoku

Gareth McCaughan

Most of the right-hand side goes in very routinely. Then I find some cells near the bottom left that have to be empty because there are two different colours they can't contain anything other than. That forces some more empty cells near there because there are runs of colours that don't fit in. Then I get a bunch more necessarily-empty cells along the bottom ... and then I need to fit, e.g., the 6 at the start of the bottom line into a space that has hardly any cells that can be its colour.

Again, most likely I'm overlooking something, or seeing something that isn't there.

But you did ask "how so?" :-).

Hm. I get a pretty symmetric shape to the left with some writing inside.

7:29 PM

^

that's what you're looking for

0

Q: Grandpa really likes these brands

Grandpa is a foodie. But he is also kind of picky He likes Sara Lee but not Betty Crocker He likes Hershey but not Godiva He likes Carling but not Sapporo I wonder why.

riddle knowledge

well, personally I started solving at this part of the puzzle:

user image

but I guess that would be obvious

7:46 PM

@Avi I generally like cryptics and similar wordplay-based puzzles (of course), as well as Japanese-style logic puzzles. (Not as much a fan of nonograms and Sudoku, though - I prefer the ones with more interesting solve paths.) I also like linguistics-based puzzles like the international linguistics olympiad.

Don't think I could pick a favorite out of all of those.

what does the international linguistics olympiad do?

oh, there's a link to past problems

oof, definitely not something I have expertise in

You may take a look at A strange summation - people have been getting closer, but they're not quite there yet

I wouldn't say I have expertise in it either (though I am interested in linguistics in general, and I've given a few of the problems a shot).

I took a look at that one - not really interested in "riddle"-type things.

linguistics + puzzles does sound like a fun combination

it is!

8:03 PM

@Deusovi Fair enough

Wasn't there a post on how to create puzzles in meta or something?

The one with a bunch of links to useful tools

I'm not sure "how to create puzzles" would fit into a single post.

but I think there was probably one with links to tools?

33

Q: A collection of Puzzling Tools

This post is a community-wiki compilation of useful puzzle tools and websites. If you find some useful source, please edit the according answer post to add it. Also add a short description, please. Categories below: Cipher Tools Word Tools Number Tools Graphic Tools Puzzle Tools Geograp...

support faq search

aha

favorited

8:28 PM

Highly successful puzzler starts to usurp leading wealthy one in disorganized govt. (6 5)

I'm going to make a slight adjustment to the CCCC if that's okay as I'm not completely sure it's fair in its current form.

Fine with me, because I'm quite baffled by it in its current form. :)

CCCC: Poles not hiding in Poland (6)

@MOehm Did you get the full nonogram solution?

I think so, yes.

8:35 PM

alright, puzzle on

Highly successful puzzler starts to usurp leading wealthy one in disorganized govt. (6 5) - U_ L_ + RICH + VO(I)GT*

9:15 PM

Initially, cryptic lovers' obselete stuff (nearly duds) (8)

Is it just me or does archipelago's question asking style seem really close to balazs.com's asking style?

they both tend to give really unhelpful hints on really unclear puzzles

yes, I had noticed some similarities too

9:34 PM

@Avi I recall Archipelago opening a chat room with someone and declaring that they were in fact balasz

Can't seem to find the conversation anymore though

@hexomino i think this is OLESNO, a polish town ("in poland") hiding in p_OLES NO_t

"in poland" is not defined by "olesno", is it?

or doesn't define*

@HTM :( rip, now I have two usernames to ignore instead of 1

yeah it doesn't match up because "in poland" is a prepositional phrase and not a noun

but hexomino is not among the worst sticklers in the room so i think there's a chance of it being correct :)

10:03 PM

@hexomino A stretch, but here goes: "Poles" refers to the letters l and I, which look like poles. "Not" is the prefix a-. So we've LIA hiding, i.e. containing, "in", the prefix end-, for LENDIA, Poland. (I'm not sure whether Lendia has ever actually been used as a name for Poland, but this page implies as much (though not necessarily in English) and it works etymologically.)

GentlePurpleRain

10:17 PM

^^ #BadC4Solution

IDK, I'd say it was a semi-genuine attempt, though it is indeed very stretchy

@GentlePurpleRain It's all perfectly valid except the Lendia=Poland part. So… yeah, I guess #BadC4Solution. :-)

Though it really does work etymologically. Lendia could've wound up as the English name for Poland: it just didn't happen to.

The Lendians (Polish: Lędzianie) were a West Slavic tribe who lived in the area of East Lesser Poland and Cherven Towns between the 7th and 11th centuries. Since they were documented primarily by foreign authors whose knowledge of Central European geography was often vague, numerous speculations have accrued to their name, which include Lendzanenoi, Lendzaninoi, Lz’njn, Lachy, Landzaneh and Lendizi. == Sources == In Latin historiography the Bavarian Geographer (generally dated to the mid-9th century) attests that Lendizi habent civitates XCVIII, that is, that the "Lendizi" had 98 gords, ...

(But I think jafe has the intended solution.)

Gareth McCaughan

Archipelago's reaction when I actually solved one of his puzzles seemed quite balazs-like, too -- getting grumpy that I hadn't solved it by the intending route, declining to clarify what the intended solution was even after my answer apparently included all the relevant bits, etc.

10:33 PM

Mods have ways to look for sockpuppetry. I forget who in this room is a PSE mod (and can't easily tell on mobile).

Gareth is

GPR is

GentlePurpleRain

And Rubio and Deusovi.

ah

Gareth McCaughan

We do indeed have some tools for checking such things. I decline to comment on whether we have used them in this instance or what the result was if so.

@GarethMcCaughan naturally

10:41 PM

2

Q: A Plethora of Puzzled Pawns

Inspired by this question According to FIDE rules, the pawn may move to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece. So, what's in front of a pawn? I'll let you choose. Find a minimal sequence of moves for the following boar...

chess checkerboard

10:59 PM

user image

:O

I've seen 1 user was removed before

but not 2

@jafe Apologies for the delay, this is the intended answer, well done!

@msh210 This is very inventive, I'm sorry it's not what I was thinking about.

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Dec '1912

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