The Sphinx's Lair

Prince North Læraðr

16:00

Maybe the "-" is supposed to be taken as a word

MINUS?

MINS=MENS?

Ankoganit

Then there's no indicator

Prince North Læraðr

Yeah idk

msh210

whistles

Prince North Læraðr

Wait!

Oh shucks! I thought I had something

msh210

Someone had the right idea. Somewhere up there ↑

Prince North Læraðr

16:05

PEEP is a synonym for both cover and folk

PEEPS PEEP

cries

It's the CAST CATS lol

bobble

virtual hugs

Prince North Læraðr

CASTE CAST CATS

CAPS=cover?

Maybe musical is a sound indicator?

GentlePurpleRain

11 mins ago, by GentlePurpleRain

Could "musical" possibly be a "sounds-like" indicator?

Prince North Læraðr

Yeah, I was parroting what you said earlier

GentlePurpleRain

Actually, PEEP could be a synonym for "musical" as well (maybe a bit of a stretch). As in a PEEP is a musical sound.

matt

16:09

gooood morning :)

bobble

matt, do ya got C4 ideas?

Prince North Læraðr

@GentlePurpleRain Except the last letter is S

matt

@bobble nope, sorry

what have we tried as of yet?

bobble

can anyone with more experience help here? I'm not sure what to say.

matt

I'd say "probably so as to avoid confusion/duplication

in fact I just did

Sciborg

16:18

Hello :D

Are we working on the C4?

bobble

'borg!

yep

matt

hey mick!

Sciborg

I had an idea over my sandwich and had to pop in. OPUS?

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg Pokemon connect wall is basically solved

@Sciborg For...?

Sciborg

The C4. OPUS is a musical 4-letter word ending in S. I'm not sure of the wordplay though.

Prince North Læraðr

16:19

well, how would it work for the def?

Sciborg

I'm not sure, just figured I'd offer it as an idea

BASS also came to mind, but that seems unrelated to the def.

What other stuff have we considered?

Voldemort's Wrath

hewwo

matt

hiiiii vvvvvoooooolllllllldddddddyyyyyyyyyy

Voldemort's Wrath

lol hhhhhiiiiii mmmmmmaaaaaatttttt

Prince North Læraðr

HIIIIIIIII VOLDDDDYYYYY

bobble

16:24

ugh

Prince North Læraðr

What

msh210

@Sciborg something correct, apparently, since the setter said "Someone had the right idea. Somewhere up there ↑"

matt

@bobble :'(

Sciborg

@msh210 I mean, you're the setter, so... you would know :p

msh210

@Sciborg oh... right

Sciborg

16:25

Easy to forget, of course

Voldemort's Wrath

hhhiiiii nnnnoooorrrrrtttthhhhh

Prince North Læraðr

My puzzle is sooooo close to being 100% solved

Sciborg

I think the joke of stretching out letters has somewhat died at this point, guys.

Voldemort's Wrath

i would "hiiii" everyone else but I'm in math class and don't have time

matt

@Voldemort'sWrath you don't want to have bobble grr at you

GentlePurpleRain

16:26

@Sciborg "musical" can't be the def, because it's in the middle of the clue.

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr I know exactly how that feels

Voldemort's Wrath

@matt more importantly have a bobblie grr at me

msh210

@Ankoganit you're also so close to being solved?

2

Sciborg

@GentlePurpleRain My thought was more treating "musical cover" as the definition, although that's admittedly a very loose definition of OPUS and doesn't seem to fit.

Prince North Læraðr

@Ankoganit It;s literally 99% solved. Just one extra clarification

Ankoganit

16:26

@msh210 in the grand scheme of things, perhaps

matt

@Voldemort'sWrath especially that

GentlePurpleRain

@Sciborg If by "loose definition" you mean "virtually an antonym"... :P

3

Sciborg

@GentlePurpleRain Hey, it was just an idea :p

Also, hello, I haven't met you yet!

Please forgive how terrible I am at solving C4s.

Ankoganit

GentlePurpleRain meets Gentleperson

Should be interesting

Sciborg

The League of Extraordinary Gentles?

Ankoganit

16:31

Heh

Sciborg

I don't care if that made two people leave the chat, I stand by that joke.

Ankoganit

@Sciborg pfft, their loss

GentlePurpleRain

1 hour ago, by GentlePurpleRain

Nice to meet you. But no handshakes right now. COVID, you know.

Sciborg

Understandable, I will wave at you from a safe social distance.

GentlePurpleRain

O/

Sciborg

16:33

o/

GentlePurpleRain

Apparently my head is bigger than yours.

Or maybe you're just farther away...

Sciborg

You do live in Canada, so I'm probably just farther away.

bobble

let me get this out of my system...

borg-a-borg!

Sciborg

It's what we Michiganders call a long-distance Yooper wave.

bobble

(there, I said it)

Prince North Læraðr

16:35

Okay, I just basically gave the last part of the answer to the solver, because they had like 99% of it solved and the 1% I realized wasn't all that important

Ankoganit

Then their hand would be longer

Sciborg

True, true.

GentlePurpleRain

@Sciborg You're probably closer than most of the people on here...

Prince North Læraðr

@Deusovi Does having only three parts solved (and not being very sure of those groupings) of a connect wall count as a partial answer?

Doesn't really feel like it

Deusovi

depends on how confident you are in those groupings, but i don't see why not

Prince North Læraðr

16:37

Mm

Sciborg

I'm amazed that somebody figured out the "highest base speed in their category" one, I would never have gotten that without a program or something.

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg It's called Serebii :P

Sciborg

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Cheeky tree :P

Prince North Læraðr

There's a list of fastest Pokemons, and if that pokemon is the fastest in their type, its usually listed under the trivia section of Bulbapedia

Sciborg

I love the Greek mythology grouping also, super creative.

Prince North Læraðr

16:39

@Sciborg Oh, that wasn't it

Sciborg

It wasn't?

Prince North Læraðr

The last grouping was Pokemons with both a signature move and a signature ability, but ended up being just pokemons with a signature ability

Sciborg

Ohhh

Dangit, I really should have looked closer at Bulbapedia.

Prince North Læraðr

Yup

Deusovi

yeah, "greek mythology" seemed sketchy to me

Prince North Læraðr

16:41

I'm really nerdy with Pokemon, so when I said Bulbapedia, I meant scroll all the way down to the stats portion :P

@Deusovi Yeah. If I were to do Greek mythology, I prob would've tried to make it more defined

Sciborg

I was looking mostly at the top parts, so my bad :p

Was thinking "they're going to do something with the colors or the habitats, I'm sure of it"

Prince North Læraðr

Btw fun fact: Darkrai's name is a combination of Dark+kurai (which means dark in Japanese), so it's literally Dark Dark

Dark Dark: The pitch-black pokemon

Sciborg

Sounds like that Final Fantasy character "Noctis Lucis" whose name literally translates to "Night Light"

oAlt

omg that does make sense

Prince North Læraðr

@oAlt What makes sense? Darkrai's name?

I think it was kind of dumb lol

oAlt

16:44

yeah.. didnt establish the link in my mind cuz i do know (very very very) little japanese

@PrinceNorthLæraðr lol

Sciborg

It's like the Moon-Moon of Pokemon.

Prince North Læraðr

Hahaha

Honestly, my favorite part of that puzzle was the "has the exact type in their name"

Sciborg

That was the first group I got, made me smile

Prince North Læraðr

Everything else was super nerdy

Like

Pokemon lore?

Base stats?

Sig move/ability?

bobble

My favorite grouping for mine was "places with chemical elements named after them"

Prince North Læraðr

16:46

@bobble Oooh, loved that one

Personal fav of mine too

Sciborg

That was HELLA clever, bobble

Prince North Læraðr

But I'm surprised ppl didn't catch onto the Pokemon duo

Until way later

bobble

I started with that (it really limited my choice of final answers), figured out that Germany let me do MAN + WOMAN leader, then threw in the black-stripe as a fourth category

Sciborg

I love puzzles like that where once I figure out the trick or a clever part of it, it makes me smile like a doofus.

Prince North Læraðr

I'm working on my second Pokemon puzzle already :P

Sciborg

16:48

I promise that next time I catch a Darkrai, I'm going to name it "Dark-Dark" in your honor :D

Prince North Læraðr

Ahahaha

Ankoganit

This FTC is going well, it seems!

We are only 3 days in

And plenty of good submissions

Sciborg

I love what everybody came up with, everyone did their own thing with it and came up with unique spins. Favorite part of FTCs.

Prince North Læraðr

For future Pokemons, just be ready to be as nerdy as you can with these connect walls :P

Voldemort's Wrath

^

poll: what's your favorite research paper style (MLA, APA, or Chicago)?

bobble

16:52

I have always wanted to make a flag puzzle - but never got a good enough idea until the FTC

Prince North Læraðr

MLA

Bc that's the one I know

Voldemort's Wrath

oof

MLA is designed only for classes tho

mine is APA 'cuz it's cool

and that's how most research papers are written

Ankoganit

Hopefully someone gets mine soon

It's basically done

It's at the stage where if you ignore everything except the important parts you'll immediately see it

Sciborg

It looks like Stiv is pretty much there

Ankoganit

Yep

Puzzling Meta

17:01

0

Q: A collection of customizable Puzzling Tools

Here you will find the complete code to apps/tools that may help you solve puzzles and/or create puzzles. They may even turn tedious procedures into interactive simulations! If you have a piece of fully functioning script that does things users on PSE frequently do, post it as an answer below, an...

bobble

(since no one asked: today is one of the rare days I woke up feeling male)

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble Huh

Cool

Sciborg

I might contribute some of my puzzle-solver code snippets to that meta post, looks like it could be a handy collection.

Prince North Læraðr

17:17

@bobble Bobbie! ;)

bobble

17:48

I have to turn something in BUT MY PHONE WON'T ATTACH IT AGGH

Stiv

@Ankoganit Spotting which bits are important is proving tricky! Since you've made us solve a slitherlink I think that either we're focusing on the inside or outside of the loop, but beyond that I'm spotting little past my freak coincidence ANSI observation earlier! Still looking...

The blue boxes within the loop appear to spell PI if you look at it a particular way

And there are exactly 4 blue boxes outside the loop

I've tried letter counts, initial letters (clues and solutions)...

But the fact you were able to change the grid around and keep your correct answer the same suggests that none of the exact content of the clue boxes is relevant and it must be something visual

bobble

don't fall too far down any rabbit holes, Stiv

you might not come out the same

Stiv

Forget rabbits, I chased a badger on this one

Sphinx

18:24

1

Q: Fight for your life!

Try figure out what the answer is by looking at the image below. The answer is nine letters long.

word enigmatic-puzzle visual

bobble

the [word] tag can be used for puzzles where the answer is a short phrase, right?

jafe! you are here!

Stiv

@bobble "a word or a set of words but not a phrase, sentence or sentences"

That's what the tag wiki says

You'd probably get away with something hyphenated!

bobble

I seem to recall someone telling me that short phrases were fine (around the time I joined) - can't find the comment now

jafe

19:01

word is a strange tag, it's difficult to think of a puzzle type where that would be the only tag

bobble

19:19

I got an idea for some flag-groupings for a new connect-wall... will probably make this before my Pentomino Nurikabe idea :) TOO MANY IDEAS

jafe

sounds good!

bobble

Are you okay with me using Knockoff Gladys more?

jafe

sure

i'm wondering if i can remake the meta for my gladys series to coincide with a future variety grid fortnight

bobble

ooh that would be cool

going by current votes, the Variety Crossword Grids would be next fortnight

jafe

yeah

bobble

19:27

what kind of variety grid are you thinking of?

Sphinx

19:38

0

Q: Fewest number of weighs to check if coins are correctly labelled

This is inspired by the following question over at Computer Science Stackexchange : Information-theoretic limits for a weighing puzzle You are given 11 coins with labels 1,2,3,... up to 11. You know these coins have weights 1,2,3,...,11 but you do not know which coin has which weight (in particul...

optimization weighing

jafe

need to think... it was supposed to be a cross shape

maybe join the ends at the back to form a cylinder

or try to make a circular shape... hmm

bobble

you could also just have variable number of letters per box

jafe

actually the gimmick is that some (a lot of) cells are left empty

there was an earlier entry with multiple letters per cell

bobble

ah. then that might count already.

jafe

in any case i'm going to remake the grid... the current one has 2-letter words, among other atrocities

In Spain, the god is James (2)

Gareth McCaughan

19:59

That one is indeed an atrocity.

bobble

what's the answer?

Gareth McCaughan

EL

triple def

bobble

ack

Gareth McCaughan

one of them being from E L James, author of "Fifty Shades of Grey".

(ick)

John Dvorak

:grimacing:

jafe

20:00

hehehe

bobble

make triple def of "he" now

Gareth McCaughan

Man after hydrogen explosive (2) ? (ugh)

Explosive element, man (2) ? (ugh ugh)

bobble

why is explosive = he?

Gareth McCaughan

abbr for "high explosive" is HE

bobble

Explosive man after hydrogen (2) ?

Gareth McCaughan

20:02

yeah, that also kinda-sorta works and is also horrible :-).

matt

20:15

@bobble It's helium, man. High explosives (2)

jafe

The male character in the Middle East is explosive (2)

GentlePurpleRain

Man, helium half-laugh is explosive. You think back. (2)

bobble

oh... no...

GentlePurpleRain

half-laugh = (HE he) You think back = EH<-

jafe

quad-def plus wp?

GentlePurpleRain

20:24

triple-def plus double wordplay

bobble

is "weighings" a word? my spellcheck thinks not, but Google thinks so

GentlePurpleRain

I would call "half-laugh" wordplay.

Yes, weighings is a word if you're making a puzzle about scales. One weighing being one instance of putting things on the scale.

Sphinx

2

Q: Chain Puzzle: Tabletop Games #7 - Maze

This is the seventh Chain Puzzle in the Tabletop Games series, in which all puzzles are themed around board games, card games, tile games, and the like. The answer to this puzzle is a thematic word or phrase. The solver whose answer is awarded the green checkmark has first refusal on the opportun...

word visual mazes

GentlePurpleRain

weighing

Verb: weighing

present participle of weigh

Noun: weighing (plural weighings)

The process by which something is weighed.
She took her baby to the clinic for regular weighings.

Adjective: weighing (comparative more weighing, superlative most weighing)

That weighs or burdens.

Avi

21:04

I need a list of all red pokemon D:

pure red, like herrings

bobble

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/…

Avi

yey, thanks!

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Seaking_(Pok%C3%A9mon)

aha, a red fish

John Dvorak

Red pokemon, or pokemon in Pokemon red?

oh, a pokemon that is red is what you were Seaking...

bobble

hah... hah... hah

Avi

That rhyme indicates the time for you to stop Speaking...

offs myself

what is "red herring" in morse code?

bobble

21:09

.-. . -.. / .... . .-. .-. .. -. --.

Avi

D:

that's a lot of spaces

bobble

the spaces are in-between letters

Avi

spaces are for losers D:

.-..-........-..-...-.--.

ez

translation: "#)$*#()%*@)$^&@)"

Prince North Læraðr

22:34

Geez, I just had another mental breakdown

Got a 3/6 on a math test I thought I got a 5/6 on

My grade is at a D+ again

I literally can't

bobble

virtual hugs

Prince North Læraðr

I stepped down from my role as club president

bobble

too much pressure?

Prince North Læraðr

Just everything

So much to do

I just

This one was really bad because I studied and prepared for the test, but I still failed

That's the first that's ever happened

bobble

I'm so sorry. That sucks

North, are you still there? Are you coping?

oAlt

22:50

:'(

bobble

you can join North's room right now

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr sorry, that sucks

oAlt

I'm assuming this is "the grove"?

bobble

yep, though looks like he left for math now

oAlt

23:56

my urges to edit a post have never been as strong as now

Bubbler

Why?

bobble

which post?

oAlt

just in general-- I've been wanting to use edit privileges to tidy up grammar/typos but I was still below 2k before

bobble

If the post is still on the front page, then why not?

I edit all the time

oAlt

Yeah I'm waiting for OP of the Corona puzzle to respond to my comment so that I'm sure what parts to edit in their puzzle

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