The Sphinx's Lair

6:59 AM

CCCC: Commencement of aid in starving country (7)

sorry for the delay

2 hours later…

9:05 AM

@jafe HUNG(A_)RY

9:23 AM

nice

9:34 AM

@msh210 that's right

CCCC: Speak perhaps too nicely about having a less feminine figure (7)

2 hours later…

Q: Some friends and I are trying to figure out this puzzle (Mensa Question 29). We have a few different theories that make sense

11:45 AM

Anyone happen to know how this works? We can't decide whether to go top down or left to right.

riddle

12:08 PM

@jafe I'm not sure whether that was meant to be especially easy, but, just so you know, almost every native English speaker who's at all interested in wordplay has realized at one time or another that "Hungary" and "hungry" are the same but for the "a". (Incidentally, did you know Hungarian and Finnish are related languages? Though not very closely. IIRC Estonian, too, and no other living language with a sizable population.)

I'm wondering - why is it that "sizable" has come to mean "stuff too big to be sized"?

:-)

It doesn't really mean that, though... it just means "big". At least, I think so.

Czech uses "uncountably many", which makes much more sense, except in English that one means something else thanks to mathematics.

@msh210 Is the solution to your CCCC perhaps just FLATTER?

(ddef)

@GarethMcCaughan yes indeed

12:15 PM

Oooh, I love that

Bother, that means I have to write a new one.

@GarethMcCaughan heheh

@JohnDvorak thanks

Q: Not to waste a perfectly good puzzle

12:53 PM

I formulated this puzzle as part of a project I'm working on. However, it turned out that it was, uh, a bit too difficult to include for the audience we're aiming it at - it took someone over 40 minutes to solve with me standing right there helping, so it isn't making it into the actual project. ...

enigmatic-puzzle cipher sudoku

Incidentally, nobody's quite gotten all the references in The Ballad of the Dragonborn yet as far as I can tell.

1:20 PM

@msh210 yeah i didn't expect that it would take long :) maybe i'll do a double def on "turkey" next!

Tarkey malarkey

hungarian and finnish sound a bit alike but if you give me a hungarian text i'd expect to recognize approximately zero words

Bird found with one out of three right within a tangle of tubes (8) - DUC(TWO + R)K

inspired by MA(LARK)EY

I can't help but notice how teammate contains TEAM*=MATE, and also (EAT ME)*

1:39 PM

eat meat, M! (007's dietary recommendation to his boss)

Is that a CC o.o

nah, just anagram of "teammate"

It feels like one, but I'm 80% certain I'm actually being bamboozled

ahhhh

oh, it's you again.

1:53 PM

now that i think about it, the vast majority of the clues i have ready are really simple

one of them requires the solver to find a japanese city whose name is an anagram of "tokyo"

that's what you get when you use the most interesting ones first, i guess

oh, Yokto, I see

/s rot13(Xlbgb)

there are some interesting ones coming as well, though... posting a crossword tomorrow with a couple of schrödinger clues

2:09 PM

does that mean each entry goes in a different place within the crossword?

@jafe :-)

2:30 PM

@Avi yeah

it's just like a regular crossword except some clues are exactly the same as another clue

apart from the number of letters

Deusovi

2:55 PM

@jafe ooh, exciting!

2 hours later…

North

4:38 PM

@Mithical You say Dragonborn, I think Skyrim

Q: Is it possible to create a knot that is locked only when the rope is stretched?

Is it possible to create a knot that is stable/locked when the rope is stretched? When the tension is relived the knot should open.

mathematics puzzle-creation topology

5:14 PM

@North I know basically nothing about Skyrim

North

@Mithical youtube.com/watch?v=UsnRQJxanVM

Oh, I think I've heard that before

North

Yea

It's one of the most iconic vg music, so I wouldn't be surprised

shoover

6:01 PM

Does MathJax work in chat? $log_2^3$

ohhhh sadness

Rubio

@shoover there's userscripts to make it work. I saw your MathJax correctly rendered. :)

There's a userscript somewhere to make it work, but I don't have it installed.

Darned doggy dninjas

Rubio

Auto ChatJax

1 hour later…

7:21 PM

puzzle burnout

been marathoning puzzle creation

do not recommend

8:00 PM

CCCC: As yet, unfortunately, this product is scarcely available in shops (5)

8:29 PM

Q: Crosswords - Feline rage

Here's a crosswords puzzle grid: Horizontal clues 1) The better thing that can happen to a recruit 7) Local Area Network 8) Ante Meridian 10) Not out 11) Grip tightly and sharply between finger and thumb 14) A type of precipitation 15) A famous plushes ...

word crosswords

@GarethMcCaughan I guess this must be (AS YET)* = YEAST

Yup. If anyone's reading the transcripts ten years from now they're going to be like "what the hell's the definition there?".

@GarethMcCaughan Haha, yeah, have to say it's been on our shopping list for a while with no success.

9:09 PM

CCCC: Buy one hundred and twenty-five sheets of paper. (7)

@hexomino A+C+QUIRE

@msh210 That was quick! Well done.

@hexomino thanks. The "twenty-five sheets of paper" gave it away.

-2

Q: Man and his puppies

A man had three puppies. He named the first one max, second one was called buddy, what was the name of the third one.

riddle lateral-thinking

CCCC: For a minor offense, Calico pled insanity. (10)

1 hour later…

10:45 PM

Q: What is a Royal Word™?

What makes a Royal Word™ a Royal Word™? Some pairs are synonyms, others are antonyms. Some pairs are completely unrelated. So what is a Royal Word™?

language

1 hour later…