The Sphinx's Lair - 2020-10-27 (page 2 of 2)

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4:16 PM

0

Q: A very tough "Brentwood Puzzle" buzzing around web?

Three men, including Gianni and three woman, including Sachi are in line at the BrentWood post office. Each has two different pieces of business to conduct. The first person is a woman. Carlos wants to send an overnight package. Lau is just ahead of Pimentelli who is the same sex as Lau. Gianni i...

logical-deduction

4:35 PM

hey, 'borg!

Hello!

when will crossword be out?

I'm on lunch break but I will post when I get home :)

I eagerly await someone sniping me

Is Matt good? He peaced out of chat last night and seemed unhappy, I was worried something I said upset him

4:41 PM

I think? Not sure. You can analyze his above messages for yourself.

I didn't mean to upset him, maybe he took my jokes seriously and thought I was mad :/

Did I say something out of line? Like was it the gender jokes?

I really don't know.

Hopefully he's good, I'll ask if he's okay when he pops back in.

We like you, matt!

We're your buds @matt

I'm still hella proud of you for submitting your first college app, that's such a cool thing :D

Anthony Ingram-Westover

4:52 PM

Hindsight, I think my last puzzle is way too verbose. Oh well, hope people like reading. Already have an idea for fifth destination if the pilot puzzles aren't getting old

I have a link to a portal that I can obsessively check for any decision :) Trying to not look too often

Oh hi Anthony! I haven't seen you here before

@AnthonyIngram-Westover I've never tried them (not my type of puzzle) but they've always looked cool

Definitely don't keep checking @bobble, it drives you insane :p

@Deusovi Could you please make this question a community-wiki?

4:54 PM

sure, done

Thanks!

By the mod powers that be

Now I only need to pump up my bot account to 100 rep so it can edit stuff :P Otherwise I'll just use my main, doesn't really make a difference except confusion

*edit community wikis

If it's not called RotterBot I will be disappointed

How about RotterBotter?

5:00 PM

sorry to disappoint, I was going for "FTC_Bot" :D

RotterBotter

Brilliant

By the way, did you think of some cool title for the crossword?

Ooh, not yet. Suggestions?

what's the theme?

or is it a secret? spooky music

it's a secret, dun dun dun

5:03 PM

If it's a secret, you can use the title to hint at the theme

@Sciborg that was bobble, not me

also yes i am perfectly fine :)

matt's back

yes

I'm glad you're good, I was just worried maybe you had a bad day or needed to talk. We're always here :D

(maybe in a different room, though)

5:04 PM

thanks :)

(in a different room yes, but still here!)

Let us know if anything's the @matt-er

@bobble yyyyeah

@Ankoganit heh

@Ankoganit I can't even be mad because that made me laugh IRL

(I'm only half-sorry)

5:06 PM

1

Q: My suffix is the wife, My infix is the opposite sex

My prefix is in delight. My suffix is the wife. My infix is the opposite sex. My whole will not object.

riddle word affix-riddle

I have Big Honkin' Physics Final Project, will be leaving to work on it.

Good luck :)

@Sciborg binary is for computers, not for humans

@Mithical truer words never spoken

just imagine ternary genders

hey i should add that t my- no

5:07 PM

@Sciborg funny, mine usually just goes "no"

Ah, I like to think of my gender more as "all of them"

user image

Legendary post

The affix riddle up there is actually kinda relevant, funnily enough

affix riddle? what affix riddle?

The one Sphinx just posted, I forgot you might be blocking the bot

5:12 PM

indeed i am

not that i like affix riddles - i dont

They're usually not my taste either, but they're fun to make and a good beginner puzzle

also my englsih teacher just gave us all a TiMe MaNaGeMeNt dAiLy ScHeDuLe /s

I think it is a bit overused on Puzzling SE sometimes :p

yes

seems like they are made just to Earn Stonks

sometimes

There was a discussion on my meta post about them where someone (I think Stiv) pointed out that many of them are less interesting puzzles, and more "let me think of a word and then break it into arbitrary pieces"

5:15 PM

I 100% agree

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Are affix riddles the "my prefix is... my infix is..." etc?

yep

they're also quite boring to a lot of people

Yeah. They are very common on the site

I don't at all mind if people like them, I just don't like them much myself. I have my filter set to ignore the tag.

Thought Exercise: imagine if we had a ternary gender system

as in like, humans

Many world cultures already have third genders

5:18 PM

how about 137 genders?

how bout dat?

That's an oddly specific number

yes

will be back shortly

I mean, there's a wide array of gender identities that people identify with, probably there are a lot out there. Not a big deal.

The number 137, according to Lederman, "shows up naked all over the place", meaning that scientists on any planet in the universe using whatever units they have for charge or speed, and whatever their version of Planck's constant may be, will all come up with 137, because it is a pure number. Lederman recalled that Richard Feynman had even suggested that all physicists put a sign in their offices with the number 137 to remind them of just how much they do not know

@LukasRotter Today I Learned

5:21 PM

Wolfgang Pauli, a pioneer of quantum physics, died in a hospital room numbered 137, a coincidence that disturbed him

ok I'll stop. I just love Wikipedia pages for numbers :)

You're good, numbers are fun :D

Anthony Ingram-Westover

I could never wrap my head around physics, beyond the basic intro courses. Skipped it entirely in college

Natural sciences as a whole, all computers for me. I prefer being the master of my science, not the other way around.

I tried majoring in physics when I first got to college, and then learned the hard way that it was a poor life choice for me. So I switched to computers too.

That worked out wayyy better.

@LukasRotter Serious question, what's your favorite number Wikipedia page?

Anthony Ingram-Westover

My husband was meteorology, so he had a lot of physics

Ahh, that makes sense. Weather patterns and simulations probably involves a lot of physics.

5:27 PM

Good question, I don't think I have one. Let's just go with 42, I guess :D

@LukasRotter This is a valid decision and I support it :p

I love the one for 22 solely because there are like twelve different songs named 22.

not 22 songs?

Specifically there are seven

But I just love the sheer number of singers who chose that extremely specific number

Anthony Ingram-Westover

@LukasRotter Any plans for a second hint to the pickle puzzle? I go back to it pretty regularly, and need closure

It's closing in on the highest rated non-answered puzzle

I'll drop a hint right now

not particularly proud of the actual puzzle-content of that puzzle, I must admit. Especially since it hasn't been solved yet - probably way too obscure

5:54 PM

i have returned

@LukasRotter How do we know? A seance?

Almost

In 1958, Pauli was awarded the Max Planck medal. In that same year, he fell ill with pancreatic cancer. When his last assistant, Charles Enz, visited him at the Rotkreuz hospital in Zurich, Pauli asked him: "Did you see the room number?" It was number 137. Throughout his life, Pauli had been preoccupied with the question of why the fine structure constant, a dimensionless fundamental constant, has a value nearly equal to 1/137.[15] Pauli died in that room on 15 December 1958

137 = 11^2 + 4^2. There are four large dimensions and 11 total. coincidence?

I think not

137 was An Imposter.

6:35 PM

ah yes the fine structure constant

@LukasRotter Can I give you my theory I've had since the beginning for your puzzle? I feel like the first step results in ",dcX-" which is what you obtain from the nth character of each line including spaces. Then knowing that what we need comprises 3 lowercase letters, 1 digit and 1 uppercase, to me this screams out that the cipher depends on KEYBOARD LAYOUT.

After all, the dash is just to the right of the digits and the comma is just to the right of the last row of letters - it would be possible to shift each back along the keyboard a bit to create lower case letters from the comma, d and c; an uppercase letter from the X; and a digit from the dash. However, try as I might I couldn't find the right shift.

'One time' indicates 'one-time pad' too.

'Pickle in front of everything else' might imply that PICKLE are used as the first letters in the key.

That's what I've got, but no further - could be a total blind alley.

It has nothing to do with keyboard layouts

Anthony Ingram-Westover

I think the ,dcX- is the key, since that's what comes right after "the key for a filling life". I was thinking Pickle was the plaintext or cyphertext, and we are solving for the other, but the number of characters don't line up

@LukasRotter Well, at least I can lay that one to rest - been at the back of my mind for a month! :)

Regarding the ciphertext, I will say that I did something which might be considered evil, but I attempted to make it clear what the ciphertext is with a clue and the additional hint #1

(although the initial clue is questionable)

6:50 PM

I think my problem is I can't process what 'alphabet' we have to use if it involves punctuation, numbers and letters. If it's a whole swathe of ASCII (which is all else I can think it might be) then how on Earth do you go about cracking that??

(That's a criticism of me, not the puzzle BTW)

If you have the right ciphertext, key and alphabet, there's no need for cracking :)

(with that I of course mean everything mentioned above should be deducible from the puzzle alone. Cracking a 5-letter cipher when its expected result is a random string of chars is arguably impossible in itself)

I mean, I get how Vigenere decryption works normally, but because I've only ever used it with letters A-Z my mind doesn't extend beyond that to accommodating punctuation marks whose only natural 'sequence' must surely lie within keyboard layouts or ASCII.

And it's a WIDE range of ASCII we'd be dealing with, spanning characters 44-100 (comma to d).

That's a heck of a big alphabet.

@LukasRotter This makes me feel that your ciphertext is either 'propaganda' or 'fluff', given the direction towards the footnote

How would the initial parts of the note fit into this?

(your previous comments)

@LukasRotter Okay, so he had noticed the room number. Maybe he was disturbed by the fact that he was in the room. Maybe even he was disturbed by the fact that he would die there. but how do we know he was disturbed by the fact that he did die there without a seance?

(Okay, I'll quit my excessive pedantry.)

(For now.)

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Visible Spectrum makes me think of light wavelength, but that could be just because I made a puzzle around visible light wavelength

7:03 PM

"For one time..." = one-time pad (Vigenere)
"...we operate..." = operators like punctuation marks included in the alphabet
"...in a larger visible spectrum..." = a large alphabet, like ASCII
"...with Pickle in front of everything else..." = unsure
"...The base range isn't the standard, but it's still standard." = the 'S' in ASCII *is* STANDARD.

Anyway, just laying down these thoughts in case it helps anybody else get closer to an answer or rule out a path. Food calls!

7:59 PM

0

Q: riley is depressed

I take my prefix because I am my infix. I am nobody, that's why I feel my suffix. I will never get up, I'll lie with my whole.

riddle word affix-riddle

8:19 PM

I got a drive-by downvote for my bobblie statue park :(

First time for me on a proper puzzle, and it's for something I'm quite proud of and worked on for a while.

Well, no use moping.

it's on HNQ, so there are going to be drive-bys

probably up more than down :)

It stands at +16/-1

0

Q: What must we remember in October 2020?

Who wears the olive wreath with who lives in the trash they do a ballroom martial art and you heard it more than once

riddle knowledge

@Voldemort'sWrath, please note that I edited out the MathJax in this puzzle before you added it back in. It's completely useless (just keyboard characters) and requires more work by the webpage to render. I'm not going to get into an edit war, but I've rolled back your edit. Feel free to discuss this with me here.

8:48 PM

0

Q: Carcass Walking: An introduction

Carcass Walking is a grid puzzle inspired by the board game Carcassonne. The objective is to place the given cities into the grid, connect them with roads, draw one river across the grid, and find places for the given number of cloisters. The river (blue squares) runs from one edge of the grid t...

Voldemort's Wrath

@bobble Sorry, I didn't realize you had edited it out. TBH, it makes the post look better (and MathJax really should be used for equations). It doesn't really add that much to the load time either. It's not a huge deal, so I'll leave it be. :):)

It just doesn't make sense to me to actively edit it out.

By that logic, I should use fancy fonts for all writing/typing because "nice fonts really should be used for proper words". But I don't, because leaving things simple makes it easier for everyone.

9:04 PM

indeed

Voldemort's Wrath

But they're mathematical equations

Would you rather see: 5+5=10

or

$5+5=10$

well it doesn't work here

but you get my point

They're numbers and + and =. Regular work perfectly fine

Voldemort's Wrath

there's no real reason not to use mathjax though

i'd say both ways work perfectly fine and don't edit in one way or the other

And I prefer the first one because my brain doesn't have a little mental bump when the font switches and the numbers get more complicated

Voldemort's Wrath

9:07 PM

Mmm... I would say I prefer MathJax, but I guess that's opinion.

i'm in favor of mathjax when you can't ascii-fy it

2^3 is fine but not sqrt(7)

but i use sqrt(7) when mathjax isnt available

Hello all. Would like to thank whoever helped me out with my earphones problem. It's solved now and everything works amazingly well.

nice! :)

glad to hear it!

(random idea, completely optional) hey bobble ... why not you try drawing your own bobblecrown?

9:14 PM

I have no artistic skills, you do not want to see my drawings.

plus, currently catching up on Last Week Tonight

i never said it had to be a great drawing

just a drawing

user image

2

Buckle up folks, it's Halloween time!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Jack o' Lantern eyes too

(Completely off topic) I am curious to know who do you guys think is winning the US Elections? I am personally not an American and so I am interested to know which side the election wind is blowing.

9:19 PM

Everybody but the US

:<

The media, as of right now

Anywhere that allows political advertising

Loool. I still don't understand how crowd-filled election rallies are allowed to be conducted amidst a pandemic

Because if anyone tried to ban them, Trump would cry foul

Plus, individual venues may pull out, but they can always find somewhere willing to host

@bobble that scream wow

@bobble trump is in the vast majority of r/facepalm posts ... that says it all

he has covid and is still denying its existence

Anthony Ingram-Westover

9:46 PM

I'll say who I definitely hope is winning, but given everything I have zero faith in this being a fair election

Strictly speaking I'm on a work computer and can't legally say anything about a particular political candidate, so I'll just imply heavily :)

hmm

you may be interested in Puzzling's short-lived politics chatroom

very short lived, yes

Anthony Ingram-Westover

We aren't allowed to discuss politics at work due to the Hatch Act, but that doesn't stop two of my co-workers

hm

10:00 PM

currently editing out MathJax used to format a numbered list of names. Really? That's not even equations!

i hate that

(i.e. when there's unnecessary mathjax, not when you edit stuff)

0

Q: Does it exist a way to find the placement order of three people in a certain competition from a set based on their final scores?

I've found this riddle in my Logic and Reason book from 2000's, the topic belongs to ordering information. From the looks of it seems to be an adaptation from a reprinted version of Martin Gardner's 70's book of Puzzle Carnival. The puzzle is as follows: Marina, Sakura and Hina were finalists at ...

logical-deduction word-problem find-the-order

also mathjax used to say "100-m sprint"

WHY

question link so i can see this terribleness?

here

don't start editing, since I am already fixing

10:04 PM

WHY DID THEY DO THAT

I've left in the mathjax for variable names, and the table, but not much else

PSA: mathjax is for math

and also tables, if you really want

tables are not math

they are furniture

But you can't make decent tables without mathjax or codeblocks, and neither is a good option

10:08 PM

can you still make tables though?

I can make tables out of clay

and I can hammer pieces of wood together

in a vaguely table-like shape

ooh yay hammers

added oxford comma hehe

they put periods after every question mark. Seriously?

My edit is in: do you think it looks better?

10:32 PM

YES

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Always add an Oxford comma

If you don't, then bad things will happen: explosions, bad people and booming

10:51 PM

0

Q: Clue within a poem-answer is most likely a word

good morning players- it’s finally here tonight the sole survivor will be crowned the nerves are building, the tension mounting with lies and paranoia abound the time has come to say goodbye to pandora and finish up our sixth season who can you trust and who do you cut they’ll cut you if you’ve g...

enigmatic-puzzle rhyme story steganography

Gareth McCaughan

11:01 PM

CCCC: Shanghai brothel in which Mandy lies back after stripping (6)

My apologies (1) for how late this is and (2) if anyone is bothered by its risque-ness.

@bobble you forgot the oxford comma lol

the point was how without the comma things can be misinterpreted

yes

11:51 PM

@Sid I have no idea either, and I haven't checked the news in a while. The only thing I know is that rapper/songwriter Kanye West is legitimately running for president as well (you read that right), but I'd clearly assume that he's going to be the least voted, assuming people are sane enough.

a dangerous assumption

assuming people are sane enough

oofie

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