The Sphinx's Lair

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

00:00

I got curious and googled apple cider vinegar. Apparently it does have health benefits, but nothing about what happened to you

Think i'm gonna go

Sphinx

03:00

0

Q: A bird-brained cipher

Today my partner, an avid ornithologist who I swear spends his whole day looking at codes and tables online, left me this cryptic clue when I asked where he had been all day. He complained about a change from 6th to 7th edition of some checklist and how he stuck with 6th edition because he liked ...

teed

06:24

Did anyone make progress on my puzzle?

Perhaps the mods already solved it?

Here is a clue:
dec0ded

Sphinx

07:53

0

Q: Periodic Formula for Puck Present on a Rotating Dial

I have a rotating Dial with 15 evenly spaced nests. As the dial rotates clockwise, individual pucks are fed into an empty nest on the dial (labelled position 1 below). As the pucks rotate around the dial, they are pushed out of the dial at position 9. So in the below image, positions 2,3,..,7 and...

mathematics computer-science

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

11:53

-@msh210 I think it's your turn for the CCCC

Sphinx

12:48

0

Q: solve the Gollum riddle

riddle_1: "40 49 55 32 60 32 52 42 51 43 53 41 32 124 124 32 40 56 42 50 32 61 61 32 52 42 52 41 32 38 38 32 33 40 51 43 51 32 61 61 32 54 41" riddle_2: "33 98 32 63 32 33 98 32 58 32 98" hint: Give answers to Gollum()

cryptography

teed

Great progress, @GarethMcCaughan though I can't accept your answer yet since there are some stuff that remain untouched. So have my upvote for now.

Here are my takeaways:
a) how did you deduce that the letters were "as either hexadecimal or decimal digits"?
b) There exists another floor arrangement between the biologist and geologist with a longer distance (and it does not refer to being hexadecimal or decimal)
c) The Boss may have many floors, and there is one that is lower than 8055, and is more appropriate

Gareth McCaughan

13:29

Hexadecimal-or-decimal: Initially I thought it would just be hex, but then I couldn't make sense of (1) the Boss being on multiple floors, (2) the Boss being on one sub-10k floor, (3) the business about distances between biologist and geologist. Allowing e.g. B to be either B or 8 gave some explanation to 1 and 3, and then allowing all-decimal-digit professions to be read in base 10 explained 2.

I don't, of course, claim that that's the only possible explanation. It just seemed like a fairly plausible one that accounted for multiple mysteries (albeit creating new ones: how come the geologist isn't also on multiple floors?).

Biologist and geologist: Noted. I can think of other ways to do it, but so far none that seems obviously Right. E.g., we could allow a whole lot of other bases (any >= the biggest digit). We could interpret the "e" in "geologist" as exponential notation; 9x10^0109157 is pretty large. (Except, no, that's the wrong way around: biologist above geologist. So scratch that one.) We could allow some adjacent letter-pairs to combine: ol = d, lo = 6, etc. But none of these things has [...continues]

... the "obviously right once you think of it" property that I would hope for.

Sphinx

0

Q: Connect Wall: I Don't Mind

A Connect Wall is a set of sixteen words/proper nouns/phrases which can be broken into four groups of four related items, where the relationship can be described by another word/proper noun/phrase. The four items defining the relations are themselves related, and that relation is defined by a sin...

connect-wall

Gareth McCaughan

Boss's many floors, one lower than 8055: Interesting. I don't have any good ideas as yet. Again, I can think of some unsatisfactory ad hoc ideas -- maybe we're allowed to ignore zeros! maybe we're allowed to ignore things that aren't actually digits! -- but those don't seem much use.

(I mean, they'd work, but how would anyone be supposed to deduce them given the puzzle?)

Other professions with higher numbers: I'm sure there are. I'm just not sure of a good way to establish which one is biggest, which is what the puzzle calls for.

Oh, I can make the geologist somewhat smaller by taking G=6 instead of g=9. Is that what you meant for (b)?

Future professions: I don't know; the only thing they seem to have in common is the letter R. One could allow that as a variant of A, or not, but I don't see any particular reason why one would change from one option to the other. Probably I'm missing something.

Lukas Rotter

15:50

@GarethMcCaughan Are you playing along with teed's clues or is "Boss" really supposed to be capitalized as a job description (contrary to a title), regardless of the position within a sentence? I always thought that was a clue, now I'm just confused xD

Gareth McCaughan

16:15

I'm going along with teed's convention.

Capitalization might be significant because e.g. lowercase "b" is like a 6 and uppercase "B" is like an 8.

Gareth McCaughan

17:03

CCCC is Cryptic Clue Chat Chains! Latest clue is ⤴/⤵ there! Join the fun! See Deusovi's Cryptic Clue Guide and GPR's Archive & Statistics of past clues.

2

(Of course the latest clue isn't ⤴/⤵ there right now because we're between clues, but I thought it was worth getting the info back on the starboard.)

Mithical

@bobble Never.

Lukas Rotter

Sad, the archive isn't maintained anymore :(

Mithical

@ThePuzzlingPlatypus Finally, someone with some sense.

Lukas Rotter

Your arrogance blinds you, Master Mith

Mithical

Your hatred has clouded your vision and dulled the senses, Master Rotter.

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

17:18

Just ate one to settle this. I'm in between. I like pickles, but there's definitely a flavor that isn't for me in these. That being said, Mom made dill pickles that were awesome, so it depends

They're not good or bad enough to start gang wars about, that's for sure

Also, I'm on a diet and there's almost no calories in pickles or any form of cucumber

Mithical

The best pickles are spicy cucumber pickles, that have been sitting in salt brine with a hot pepper.

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

See, I'm not a spicy food person

It tastes good, but I have a fairly low spice tolerance

My mom likes those though

or was it my dad or brother? Someone in my family likes those

Lukas Rotter

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Picklus The Disgusting? I thought not. It’s not a story the pickle-lovers would tell you. It’s a NPG legend. Darth Picklus was a Dark Lord of the Pickles, so deranged and so disgusting he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create pickles… He had such a knowledge of pickles that he could even keep the pickles he cared about from decaying. The dark side of the pickles is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he told his apprentice that he liked pickles, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save pickles from death, but not himself.

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

That makes no sense. The point of pickling things is to preserve them.

I get the joke

and I said I like pickles, I didn't say I loved them

I like basically anything that isn't really bitter or really spicy

what I really love is sweet things

also you're scaring me

I'm saying that meme does not apply to pickles

and now I'm regretting joining this debate at all

Lukas Rotter

:)

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

17:25

also, again, I at least respect that other people don't like pickles

although bobble called them "slimy", which I disagree with

mangoes are slimy, and those things are awesome

Lukas Rotter

Didn't find an appropriate star wars answer in the trice, so picked that one and had to replace dying by something, lol.

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

Seriously though, that's what pickling food is for. It stops it from spoiling

If you look back in the chat, @NorthLæraðr at least has a reason to not like pickles

If I had to drink vinegar, I'd probably hate them too

Lukas Rotter

yeah I know. But if I'm not completely mis-translating "pickle" into my native language, it makes sense in the way that I mean the food itself which decays after a few years after pickling. If not, I may have to (go back and rethink my life)

whatever xD

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

You know what lasts literally forever? Honey

It doesn't spoil at least

msh210

18:07

@bobble Yeah, sorry. I will within a few hours, I hope.

@ThePuzzlingPlatypus ^

ThePuzzlingPlatypus

It's fine

msh210

19:34

CCCC: Sherry Ortner, first lady of research on sexuality, offers introductions (7)

Jeremy Dover

@msh210: OLOROSO = a type of sherry wine and OLOROSO = O_ (first) + L_ O_ R_ O_ S_ O_ (introductions)

msh210

19:52

@JeremyDover yep!

Jeremy Dover

Cool! Also a good reminder I should re-read Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" again.

Mithical

I've got a copy in my cellar, if you want to go fetch it...

Jeremy Dover

@Mithical well played!

Mithical

:)

Jeremy Dover

21:29

CCCC: Rush's peak appears in Moving Pictures, a definitive work (9)

Avi

22:29

I think this is R in PICTURES* for SCRIPTURE

@JeremyDover :o

R_ in PICTURES* to be precise

Jeremy Dover

@Avi You got it!

bobble

My complements for the wonderful clue

teed

22:55

> @GarethMcCaughan Are you playing along with teed's clues or is "Boss" really supposed to be capitalized as a job description

@LukasRotter got the gist, "Boss" is just a title of the employer, not a job description. His actual job description as an *employee*, as hinted by the part "Boss is the only *employee*" and "each *employee* has their own floor" , is a different word.

"taking G=6 instead of g=9" yes

"the only thing they seem to have in common is the letter R" you are right at that

now you could make sense of the Boss being on one sub-10k floor

There is still one major thing you got wrong

Sphinx

1

Q: Unusual number triads

Let's have the following equations. $1388^2+803^2=137^3$ $236^2+115^2=41^3$ $666^2+413^2=85^3$ As you can verify by visual inspection the numbers of each triad have (GCD)=1. Question 1) How can we obtain more such triads? Question 2) What is the required method to find such triads?

mathematics

Jeremy Dover

23:17

@bobble Thanks! Not a difficult one, but I did like the surface

teed

Addition: basically the boss gets a floor as an employer, and another one as an employee

Avi

23:39

hmmm

was thinking b(L)oss(OM)ing as in "Bossing around" but it didn't work :(

time to come up with something better

bobble

I have a very funny clue that I'll probably not get to use for a while (I'm terrible at CCCCs)

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