The Sphinx's Lair

Avi

00:33

@Jens congrats on freeing your least favorite moderator

North Læraðr

@Avi ?

Avi

6

A: How to Trap Your Moderator

Partial(?) answer As others have seen, the 9 sudokus are generally unsolvable because they have numbers which repeat in rows and/or columns. However, there is one exception, which is the central sudoku. It turns out it is solvable and with a unique solution: There is something striking about the...

this was the correct solution, by Jens

bobble

No extraction of a moderator?

Avi

No, I'm not about to specify any moderator as my least favorite

they are too powerful :O

North Læraðr

Apr 18 '18 at 14:57, by Rubio

Avi

00:38

I didn't kidnap them

you did

not only that

you trapped them behind/in a Sudoku

North Læraðr

Kidnapping, trapping, all the same

Avi

that's not kidnapping

bobble

It never sticks... see Deus's honeypot

Avi

well obviously not

if I actually wanted them gone

I'd just invent an unsolvable puzzle

North Læraðr

@Avi So just stick them behind a jailcell with a 1000000000 letter One Time Code password

Duh

Avi

00:42

that's not a puzzle

I'm talking about

:o equations

North Læraðr

@Avi That is equations

Avi

where it turns out that you need to add :o to everything

to actually solve anything

North Læraðr

What is that 10000000000^26?

Avi

hinted at, by :O :o :O as the title of the puzzle

North Læraðr

I thought :o was a facial expression

bobble

00:46

yesterday, by Avi

i bet you could make an :o puzzle out of this

(click time link to see context)

North Læraðr

@bobble ah

I have a review test tomorrow

And I am NOT prepared

bobble

your math?

North Læraðr

How did you know ;)

Sphinx

0

Q: Curved brick wall

Below is a fully functioning curved brick wall. Amazingly it uses fewer bricks than a functioning straight brick wall. How is this possible?

North Læraðr

Ugh it's a review of stuff we learned last year

bobble

00:59

which you will NEED TO KNOW. I am not kidding on this, you will NEED this stuff

North Læraðr

Yeah I know :((((

bobble

(granted, if you remember it just fine, it's boring)

North Læraðr

It's like I think I remember and then I'm thrown a jank question

hold on is (i+1)^0 just 1?

bobble

anything to the 0 is 1

except 0^0, which is undefined

North Læraðr

Ok cool

bobble

01:01

L'Hospital!

okay that was a very bad calc joke

that I misspelled :( how do you misspell a joke?

North Læraðr

Wut. Le Francais?

@bobble It's funnier that way

urm what's (1/-2i)+1?

bobble

L'Hôpital's rule is a calculus technique applied when the numerator and denominator of a limit are both 0. It's not actually applied when a limit is 0^0. The joke is that people would try to to it anyways, and fail.

North Læraðr

@bobble Lol

bobble

@NorthLæraðr rewrite as -1/2i + 1, then -1/2i + 2i/2i, then (2i - 1)/2i

assuming that's what you want?

North Læraðr

Well the answer choices are

1, 1+i, 1-2i, -i, and -2i

I might have messed up simplyfing

bobble

01:08

what is start of problem

North Læraðr

the question was what is the value of (1/i^7)+(1/(1+i)^0)+(1/i^-75)

Oh it's -75

so (1/-i)+1+(-i)

bobble

oh, and the "misspelling" part of the joke is that we (my calc class) always pronounced it "Le Hospital" while it's actually "Le Hoe-Pee-Tall"

North Læraðr

@bobble xD

so (-1/i)+(i/i)+(i^2/i)?

bobble

i/i = 1, yes?

i^2/i = i

so you got -1/i + 1 + i

North Læraðr

@bobble yup

bobble

01:13

oh wait you just got out of that

North Læraðr

@bobble disregard the negative

bobble

where did the - come from?

ah

North Læraðr

My brain was like + and then - and I'm like nope it's +

So it's 1

bobble

wait is IS -, i^75 = -i, so 1/i^-75 = i^75 = -i

North Læraðr

since it becomes (-1+i+i^2/i) ---> (-1+i+1/i) ---> (i/i) ---> (1)

@bobble Why do I keep screwing myself over like this

bobble

01:16

google will automatically simplify powers of i: google.com/…

North Læraðr

so it's... i-2/i?

no -i^2 is just -1???

bobble

i^2 = -1, -i^2 = 1

North Læraðr

So it's just 1

bobble

-1/i + 1 + -i =( -i^2 + i - 1)/i = (1 + i - 1)/i = i/i = 1

so yes

don't you love complicated ways to express 1?

North Læraðr

that's question 1 omg

I HATE MATH DAMN IT

bobble

01:20

(sorry to others for clogging up chat with North's math problems)

North Læraðr

Yeah sincere apologies for being dumb :|

bobble

May I rant to you?

North Læraðr

Yes

bobble

College Board offers AP practice questions through My AP, and mostly they're good

multiple-choice and short-answer carry over easy

but the problem is when they tell you to fill out a table, or a graph, or draw on a picture

AND THERE'S NO WAY TO EDIT THE PICTURE THEY GIVE

so I'm reduced to making little ASCII art tables, or Photoshopping graphs, or (as of right now) trying to figure out how to draw an arrow on a dot when there's nowhere to submit a picture

</rant>

North Læraðr

When College Board asks you to show your work for Physics

And then they give a horrible picture system

bobble

01:24

heh. how did you figure out it was physics

North Læraðr

My friends who took it last year was complaining the whole summer last year

You know I'm seriously tempted to make a "help North with math" chatroom

bobble

will be afk now, sorry

at least an hour

North Læraðr

npnp thanks for helping

I need to eat anyways

Sphinx

01:49

0

Q: Your judgement for the afterlife (very short riddle)

You have not been the best person during your time on Earth. Your judgement is as such: uryy But what does this mean?

wordplay

Sphinx

02:14

0

Q: Flipping coins in a circle

We have a set of N coins that are all placed in a circle. They all have "Tails" as their face up side. The coins are all distinct and have numbers (1,2,3...N) written on them. In each move, we flip any 3 consecutive coins. That is, consider: H H H T T If I decide to flip the coins 3,4 and 5 then ...

mathematics logical-deduction combinatorics

oAlt

02:34

@bobble oh boy, I hate that, and when others spell it incorrectly as well D:

@Avi there was no hidden name after all, explain this >:(( 3jk/4

(I kinda expected there to have one, but, facing reality, I myself don't know how to encode a name in there.)

bobble

03:23

@oAlt My initial thoughts for possible extraction: each row has 9 3-by-3 boxes, enough to encode an ASCII byte. If each 3-by-3 with a certain property (like having the 1 above the 9, etc.) was a "1" and the others were "0", then you could get a 9-character name. DEUSOVI and RUBIO are the only two moderators short enough, and the other rows (or even intervening rows) could be nonsense.

obviously invalid... but it's an idea

And looking back at that, it would have to clue the property, so maybe a clue in the initial text?

how I would've made the puzzle :)

oAlt

03:42

neatt

bobble

why are two ts required?

oAlt

more than just "neat"

it's neatt

O:

bobble

@Avi, how you like my encoding idea?

oAlt

04:45

Question: suppose I'm at 2049 rep. I can edit others' questions and answers by then, since I hit the 2000-rep milestone. Next, I give a 50-rep bounty on a certain question. This would mean that my rep is now 1999. That's below 2000, so are my edit privileges revoked when that happens?

bobble

Yep

oAlt

D:

bobble

puzzling.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/set-bounties

What happens when I place a bounty? -> If your new reputation brings you below the requirement for any privileges, you will lose access to those privileges.

wait, how do I have more rep than you? I just got my Yearling, and I've only posted a handful of question.

and you've been around for much longer than me

oAlt

@bobble ikr HAHAHAH

My laziness has prevented me from posting puzzles at least once a month

bobble

well, bye for now :)

oAlt

04:53

:0

Sphinx

05:07

0

Q: Olympic host covered in advertisement

Across 1. Plug in the hybrid and relax (7,2) 6. Croquet, essentially? (5) 9. Characteristic of backstabber: striking the back repeatedly (5) 10. Vessels for mixing basil cereal (9) 11. He made a list of small children misbehaving (9) 12. A little timeworn ceremony, repeated so often it's no long...

cryptic-crosswords

msh210

06:32

@Avi I like the puzzle a lot. But the backstory & title make it sound like you're supposed to find a name hidden in there somehow. I think the post would've been better as the bare puzzle with no story and a simpler title. Just MHO

Sphinx

07:11

0

Q: Welcome to the Acme Corporation - please find your floor number

Welcome to the Acne Corporation. The Acme Corporation is the greatest company in the world, and it should be your utmost honor and privilege to be employed as an associate of the Corporation. The Corporation employs a wide array of professionals handpicked by the Boss, each of them are the top pr...

word knowledge word-property number-property explanation

Lukas Rotter

@NorthLæraðr I was asleep when you asked your quick question :) Dunno, didn't try it any further, maybe. I just saw Deusovi posted a very plausible suggestion

oAlt

09:12

same @msh210

msh210

12:32

CCCC hints: (1) The definition half of the clue is one word. (2) The answer has no S.

I'll be offline for ~25 hours soon, so I'll post the fullcaps answer in ~~ROT-13~~ SHA2, created using emn178.github.io/online-tools/sha256.html so you can check your solution and move on with the game: 787bacfd751ba25d3de6fa026ba9c253aadf9490273d4eee138444ebe12f7fe0

Hm, Googling that string gives a Web page with the plaintext. So, um, don't do that.

Lukas Rotter

Ah yes the answer suddenly came to me out of the blue: It's [redacted], of course. Easy CC

bobble

14:26

It's looking like my crossword will be ready today - would it be better to post on the weekend, or wait for Monday?

John Dvorak

14:37

some of our fellow users are unable to participate during weekends. Cf. what was said 2 hours ago.

bobble

define "cf"? I'm getting contradictory stuff from my usual frantic google

Gareth McCaughan

compare. Short for Latin confer.

"See" would probably be a better translation in this case.

John Dvorak

sorry

bobble

I'll spend the time making sure all my tenses match up :)

Gareth McCaughan

Strictly, I think "cf." is only really meant to be used when a contrast is being drawn.

bobble

14:44

a follow up would be: what time to post? I'll be on my computer all day with school/homework, so any time is possible, and I want to be accommodating to other time zones.

(any time that I'm awake, that is)

Lukas Rotter

using a random data.se query i just copied, it's 14:00 - 15:00 UTC :)

bobble

my morning then. someone poke me 'round that time in case I forget.

Sphinx

15:51

0

Q: How do my numbers work?

Yesterday, September (1001111 1010000 1011110), I went to the bowling alley with seven of my friends from Carnegie Mellon University -- est. (1010100 0000100 1010100 1111001 1111000 1111001 1111001 1010100 0000000 1110100 0011100 1010100 1011110 1010000 1111001 1011110). We had to play (1111001 0...

enigmatic-puzzle

Voldemort's Wrath

16:50

^ Solve me!

Sphinx

17:54

0

Q: Ruins Game - Puzzle Edition

The ruins are clear to you. They're real, and you're trapped by lava. But before you can get the button, there's a puzzle: Send: Receive: Send: Receive: Send: Receive: Find my hH5kwC5D3lfqaqlzaMVFkxFNuqCQHrrcxuC37ccRE1Q= given this text: Okay fine, have this information: stream enigma base...

information-theory

Sphinx

19:09

0

Q: Math Challenge: Create 8

Using only 2, 7, and 7 (each one must be used once) and only using the operations +, -, *, /, ^, and parentheses, make 8. You can also use decimals

calculation-puzzle

Sphinx

20:48

2

Q: East and West words

Here are some East words: wet, chip, awed, sect, stop, dry, ail, to, gyp, do, stop, an Here are some West words: few, loin, lira, jew, ours, bra, points, line, kid, tea, pots, be What are the East and West words? Hint:

pattern word-property

0

Q: Non-mathematical number sequence

Side question. I think I have never seen this sequence after my father posed the problem to me decennia ago. So apart from the solution, I would like to know if someone has seen it before. Note: Below the problems in its hardest, somewhat hidden form. The challenge, for good old times: Find the n...

pattern number-sequence

Transcript for