The Sphinx's Lair

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merrybot

00:33

yay gerbil!

2 hours later…

oAlt

02:08

@JeremyDover tidy it up and use it for april fools, hehe

oAlt

02:28

(assuming that "aware" has ≥10 synonyms lol)

3 hours later…

Sphinx

05:01

Q: Square Number Sudoku

Solve this diabolic Square Number Sudoku. Normal Sudoku Apply. Additionally, there are some rectangled area, in each area should be read as 1 number. The numbers must be SQUARE NUMBERS. There are: 1 1-digit, 17 2-digits, and 5 3-digits square numbers. Horizontal numbers is read from left to right...

Deusovi

05:22

cryptic time!

huh, an asymmetric grid - interesting

Sphinx

Q: Kenya's army is not to be messed with

Grid in plaintext Across 1. Standing in front of a dark, large entrance of estate that can be rented (7) 5. County worker, perhaps seen near border (6) 10. Wife of Abraham Lincoln (5) 11. Staunched, broken or safe and sound? (9) 12. Varna riots concerning former kingdom (7) 13. Article repeatedl...

cryptic-crosswords

oAlt

06:06

@Deusovi samee

Sphinx

Q: What order to they go?

Below is a list of clues, in no particular order: Home Forever At 7:00 PM Frequently Annoyingly Speedily One order is the correct order. What is this order, and why is it the "correct" order? Hint 1: Hint 2: Hint 3:

knowledge english

jafe

blink and you'll miss it--- oops, too late!

the unsymmetrical grid was an accident... i did notice it before posting but thought it was fine like that

(by contrast, last week's grid was made asymmetrical from the get-go)

jafe

06:59

congratulations on 100k @Deusovi!

oAlt

^^^

he struck 100k exactly too, just like Rand al'thor

jafe

if you go over without hitting 100k exactly you have to start over from zero

oAlt

07:26

ahahahha

oAlt

08:08

Also I wrongly assumed Deus would be asleep by the time the crossword was posted (since it was like that for the I and J crosswords) LOL

ttfn

Sphinx

08:37

Q: What am I, and what's the missing word?

What am I, and therefore what is the missing word?: I was one amongst thousands but I was the lucky one; I came through those doors and saw you. Eyes glazed with contentment from courses consumed, yet a glint in the eye showed you dared to presume a free treat, something sweet, something only par...

poetry

hexomino

09:03

@jafe Yes, congratulations @Deusovi. Well deserved!

jafe

also @hexomino on 90k! (is it Day of Round Numbers or something?)

Beastly Gerbil

09:45

Congrats deus! :)

Sphinx

10:36

Q: A lonely friend

Part of me shines bright at night, though me and my scars you cannot see, not invisible but out of sight, the light is never facing me. My other face likes watching you, you know me, not a stranger, I've always had one job of protecting you from danger. I always stay but not the same, I rarely s...

riddle

Gareth McCaughan

11:01

Congratulations @Deusovi and @hexomino!

3 hours later…

oAlt

13:32

CCCC hint: The wordplay is not complicated. It is easier than finding out what area of study D's and S's regularly appear in (but that also helps).

Sphinx

13:48

Q: Words with Alchemists

You are probably familiar with Word Ladders, where you attempt to transform one word into another by switching one letter at a time, with each transformation forming a new word. This puzzle is similar. The good news is that you don't have to worry about whether your intermediate strings are words...

no-computers word-ladder chemistry

2 hours later…

bobble

15:33

Congrats!

Ankoganit

15:54

Congrats Deus and hexomino!

Deusovi

16:09

Thanks, everyone! (Unfortunately I missed the "exactly 100k" screenshot - hopefully someone else got one.)

jafe

ah, i was on your profile page at exacly 100k but didn't think to screen grab

is pill = E standard? (as in, a pill of ecstasy) i thought i'd seen it somewhere but now i can't find it in any of the abbreviation lists

Jeremy Dover

16:28

@jafe I've never heard this before

but take that for what it's worth

Ankoganit

Let's just all keep downvoting Deusovi till he hits 100k again

John Dvorak

Remember that you should always vote on the content, not the poster. How about ... "deprives others of the joy of answering"?

Jeremy Dover

Is this the sort of arms race you really want to start? My money is on Desuovi solving at an even faster pace.

oAlt

Deuso(l)vi(ng)

forgive me, I just saw similar letters

Jeremy Dover

Not a real word unless you can use it in a sentence...

oAlt

16:37

bobble

"I made the mistake of working on a puzzle Deus was Deusolving - he got the checkmark, of course"

Jeremy Dover

"I was 3 am, and I thought 'Just one more clue...'. Yes, I caught myself Deusolving."

Sphinx

17:24

Q: The Pitiable Coder - Edition 2

It had been a while since my favourite newspaper had published any puzzles. In fact, it had been so long since 'The Pitiable Coder' released $\mathbb{CHEMICRYPTICS}$, that I was beginning to think that they had forgotten about them completely! But then yesterday, I opened up the paper and to my d...

word wordplay enigmatic-puzzle story science

Beastly Gerbil

Hopefully the Mathjax for that ^ is working now

When I was writing it, the rendered output all fit on the page, I didn't realise rendered output isn't quite what actually shows once posted

jafe

17:35

@JeremyDover that's what i was afraid of... better steer clear of that one in the future

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Congrats on 100k!! :-D

Unfortunately SE isn't sending swag to six-figure rep users any more (or to anyone).

bobble

wait, they used to?

Deusovi

Yeah. I have an old PSE T-shirt from around site graduation. (Too small now, unfortunately.)

Rand al'Thor

Q: 2019: do six-figure reputation users on non-SO sites still get swag?

I've always been told that hitting the 100k reputation threshold gets you a nice swag package from Stack Exchange - regardless of mod status, and except possibly on Stack Overflow where 100k reputation users are apparently two a penny. Yesterday I passed 100k reputation on Science Fiction & Fanta...

support reputation swag

@Deusovi I'm wearing my PSE T-shirt right now!

They might eventually get their act together and send swag to new six-figure-reppers. But we shouldn't hold our breath.

The six-figure swag is also better than the graduation swag. It includes a mug as well as T-shirts and stickers, IIRC.

jafe

"we're still in the process of setting up our new vendor" - i wonder if that has changed in the 12 months it's been since that post

bobble

17:49

Actually, there was a comment linking to here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/341192/…

jafe

oh right

bobble

Gist of it is since they can't send swag internationally easily, they're not sending at all

2 hours later…

Sphinx

19:23

Q: What to make of $\!\:\tt puzzle.\!txt$?

Puzzling Stack Exchange: Don’t even ask where I found the old printout of an uncommented computer program below. As I am a leading-edge software solutionaut hone-tuned for elegantly annotated exoticode, reconnoitering this printout is beneath my paygrade. All I’ve bothered to notice is that some ...

no-computers computer-puzzle puzzle-creation

3 hours later…

Sphinx

22:35

Q: Black-hat/white-hat logicians with a bell and a meal

At the 2020 yearly black- and white- hatted logician gathering, the following fun activity is organized. $N$ logicians will sit around a table, each wearing a black or a white hat the color of which is chosen for them randomly at the flip of a fair coin. Everybody sees the other hats but ignores...

probability hat-guessing

Sphinx

22:59

Q: Perfect Latin Squares

The following Latin Square has an interesting property: there are 6*5=30 possible “ordered dominos” containing distinct digits, each occurring exactly once horizontally and exactly once vertically. For instance 36 (63) occurs horizontally in the top (bottom) row and no other. Also 36 (63) appears...