The Sphinx's Lair

Sciborg

5:00 AM

even looking at the words "eye surgery" is making me a little dizzy

presumably i should not google "timestamp agents of shield eye scene" in case images pop up

bobble

One of the characters in the show shares your pain, and actually is cringing away himself for the whole scene

Sciborg

in retrospect having this thought now lodged in my brain is not a Good Idea

time to google kitten pictures

Mithical

I had to learn how to tie a tourniquet the other day and it made me slightly queasy.

bobble

Quick search doesn't reveal any timestamps, BUT! All the Dramatic Spy Scenes happen in one setting, and all of the eeky scenes happen in another. Whenever the camera cuts to the eeky place, just don't look until partner says the Dramatic Spy Scene is back.

Sciborg

kittens, kittens, just think about the kittens

bobble

5:03 AM

@Mithical not on a bleeding person, I hope

baby birdies!

Mithical

@bobble right

Sciborg

i went to go lie down and look at puppy pictures, i'm okay

bobble

more warnings about #4: an early scene has a short shot of a disconnected body part

oops you just got better

Sciborg

eeeek back to puppies

HTM

@Sciborg Hurl, as I know hidden eye surgery technique (5)

(Not the best, but couldn't resist)

bobble

5:07 AM

@Sciborg, should I send bobblies after HTM?

Sciborg

puppy!

bobble

Nov 4 at 21:39, by Sciborg

Mith, any national security incidents recently?

Sciborg

puppy babies! no blood! just puppy!

bobble

are you good now?

Sciborg

yes i'm okay

HTM

5:11 AM

Sorry if I made y'all more uncomfortable with that, gotta work on my timing I guess

Sciborg

i have looked at puppies, no worries

bobble

I don't think there are any other warnings for season 1. Well, there's violence, abuse, trauma, stalking, etc. but I think those are par for the course with this kind of show.

HTM

(btw answer is LASIK, hidden in "hurL AS I Know")

Sciborg

Ahh, nice

HTM

I'm assuming what you're talking about is waaay worse than LASIK tho

bobble

5:13 AM

Not going into details

HTM

OK, won’t press further

bobble

If you want to know, I can rot13 them

HTM

Nah, I know when I’ve gone too far, I can just read the transcript and figure it out myself

Sciborg

You're totally fine HTM, I'm just a weakass when it comes to gore :p

bobble

I HAVE PREVAILED

(legal Tetrokabe solution)

Sciborg

5:17 AM

Yay!!

bobble

hehe mixed the consonants up

Bubbler

How about naming it Tetrikabe?

oAlt

^

Sciborg

YES

bobble

I can title the next one Tetrikabe

And I am now doubting my ability to level up to Pentomino Nurikabe anyhow

Sciborg

5:20 AM

Do the ultimate flex and just alternate the spellings each time

(and you can totally do pentomino nurikabes because you are a smart crown)

bobble

I really loved how compact the other Tetrikabe was - 7x7 grid, but so many deductions required

Sciborg

So many deductions, so little space

The eye discussion probably has me thinking about this, but bobble, would you say you're fairly knowledgeable about screen readers?

bobble

I know some, but I've never used one

I know about a lot of stuff that's bad for screen readers because I've researched how to make an accessible website

Sciborg

5:36 AM

I ask because I've finally started looking into them recently, and I was wondering if there were particular ones you would recommend I try out.

bobble

because bad eyes?

Sciborg

visual stuff, yeah.

bobble

I assume "zoom in" is no longer a useable option?

Sciborg

Zooming in and using font increasing plugins has usually been fine, but I've started to admit to myself that i need more reading aids now.

bobble

early google search result, which you could probably find yourself: everydaysight.com/best-screen-readers-for-blind

Sciborg

5:40 AM

holy shit, a lot of these are expensive

bobble

screen readers also don't play well with SE's badges and rep

Sciborg

eesh

well, there goes my idea

bobble

were my links helpful?

there were some free screen readers at the bottom of the first one

Sciborg

For sure, I'll definitely try the free ones. Just seems like the decent ones cost a lot of money and SE in particular isn't built for them :(

matt

well hello there bobble and mick :) I just finished Picard and it was Very Awesome

bobble

5:48 AM

there are some userscripts that are useful for searching with a screen reader

Sciborg

I might try NonVisual Desktop Access since it seems like the best free one

bobble

I wish you luck

@matt were there BOOMs?

matt

not very many

bobble

@Sciborg longer list of free ones

Sciborg

update: this is incredibly cool, but first impression is that it it does NOT play nice with this chat window

bobble

5:54 AM

does it read from the top?

matt

wdym?

Sciborg

when i hover down to the chat input box, it goes like "table: edit multi-line blank"

matt

that's odd

Sciborg

i mean, it's not wrong technically

bobble

that's what the HTML is saying

Sciborg

5:55 AM

it's also hilarious to go to the window and have it read out "THE SPHINX'S LAIR CHATROOM STACKEXCHANGE DOT COM"

this is definitely gonna take some adjustment

bobble

you could try having it read that second list of free screen readers

Sciborg

ooh, let me see what it says

okay, this is pretty dope, it recognizes "list of 10 items"

it's really nice to be able to hover over your chat messages and have it read them to me if i'm having a hard time seeing them

bobble

I have to go now, good night!

Sciborg

good night :)

The screen reader is pretty cool, I could get used to it. Will practice with it tomorrow

oAlt

6:30 AM

i'm almost done with the c4. i have to say, though, i'm having a hard time balancing having a smooth surface and correct cluing syntax >_<

Sphinx

7:27 AM

0

Q: Colored balls in a 4x4 grid

Colored balls are placed in a 4x4 grid. A move consists of swapping two adjacent (horizontally or vertically) balls. What is the least number of moves required to form 4 connected components*, one for each color in the following grid? *Here a connected component is a collection of balls of the s...

oAlt

8:19 AM

frick.. i'm this 🤏 close to finishing the c4. it's just the surface that's bugging me...

oAlt

9:09 AM

can't believe i have to do this, but i'm so not sure about my surface. is anyone available for checking my clue? >_<

msh210

@oAlt raises hand

@Sciborg good luck

@Sciborg I know some people with poor eyesight of one sort or another have very customized stylesheets that they use. You may want to look into that. I think Monica Cellio may've written about it on her blog; and I think there may be one for SE on either Meta SE or maybe Stack Apps.

oAlt

ok the onetimesecret is drawing near

onetimesecret.com/secret/kfir6s50z6tmjsuqngdqg3agi53838d

moment of truth

msh210

@Sciborg I imagine Monica would also be willing to advise you if you ask her. Her e-mail address is publicly available, I think, and she's on the Codidact Discord server.

@oAlt onetimesecret.com/secret/pnfv9s5c4edyu48fky2rkxa2sghio8j

oAlt

9:28 AM

okek

msh210

I'm afraid I've gtg very soon so can't chat more about it

oAlt

its fine, thanx v much

oAlt

10:05 AM

sorry i am not able to release the c4 yet-- got more things to clarify with @msh210 once he comes back :P (and i have to polish some stuff)

jafe

no rush

oAlt

ye

jafe

managed to remake the grid for the gladys meta... it's gonna be a circular one

oAlt

intrsting

Sphinx

10:45 AM

3

Q: Kicking and screaming (a musical connect wall)

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #42: Wordless Connecting Walls In this puzzle, the melodies of 16 songs are given in sheet music form. You first must identify the 16 songs from the melodies. Then, arrange the songs into four groups of four, with each group of songs related by a common ...

music connect-wall

msh210

11:07 AM

@oAlt waves

Mithical

@Sciborg SE's accessibility in general isn't great.

Puzzling is especially not accessible, but that has to do with the content here more than anything else.

msh210

@Mithical how goes it

(Not the site accessibility. The basic training.)

oAlt

11:35 AM

oh yeah

it's time once again

msh210

13:35

oAlt

+ 6 h for me

onetimesecret.com/secret/4b5nbrjdirt7wyvt0wbghklfi96jk5r

moment of truth part 2

msh210

@oAlt onetimesecret.com/secret/d42v46pepf2o9dln4s067402a6sfyls

oAlt

oh ok w8

msh210

@oAlt southeast Asia?

or Perth?

oAlt

11:48 AM

first one's correct. for where i specifically am, one can search past messages :P

onetimesecret.com/secret/gkrg6lb6b7fhwrb9n72j456k00godse

msh210

12:00 PM

@oAlt onetimesecret.com/secret/t4tnld3gx7e9hscmmjwtskoi4ux14io

@oAlt But if you're happy with what I said "sounds a little weird on the surface", then just go with it.

melfnt

@bobble regarding the [mnemonic] tag... ok fine let's remove it until many more questions will came out. If you don't want to start an edit war just drop a comment to the question, otherwise how am I (and other users) supposed know what you are doing and why? Yesterday I entered the chat to see if someone were discussing about tags but I couldn't find anything... my bad I didn't look back to the past few days.

oAlt

( @msh210 okek, still processing though coz we're having dinner now hehe)

msh210

@melfnt «If you don't want to start an edit war just drop a comment to the question, otherwise how am I (and other users) supposed know what you are doing and why?» By edit using summaries to explain why and reading others' edit summaries in the post history. (Note: This is a general answer, not specific to your situation. I don't know what edits you're speaking of.)

@oAlt bon appétit

okek

Noun: okek

(mathematics) Initialism of ortak katların en küçüğü....

oAlt

oh that exists

Also thanks for the suggestions @msh210 . I agree with the first one (that helped clean the surface a lot), but I might considering using a different indicator for the second part. I'll still think it through though

msh210

12:22 PM

@oAlt Cool. Ping me if you want me.

oAlt

ortak katların en küçüğü

jafe

1:46 PM

question starts with "how do you deduce the complete list of five beers..."

answer starts with "it has multiple solutions..."

yes. yes it does.

Ankoganit

@jafe Hm, I think "complete list of five beers" means the complete list of five items, each being a beer

Not the complete list of all possible combinations of beers

oAlt

2:06 PM

ugh frick still haven't found a good indicator

frick it, i don't think i can make it any more difficult. clue is incoming

oAlt

2:34 PM

ok

the legitimate moment of truth

CCCC: "Thank you, love. Continue helping others." starts short letter written behind card, with perhaps a heart drawn on the outside; it calms my heart. (13)

Deusovi

wow that's a lot of words

oAlt

:P

oh frick, why did i use that word in the clue ;_;

melfnt

@msh210 I know. Unfortunately this time the edit summary was the mere computer-generated "edited tags". Thank you anyway (:

jafe

@oAlt t_ y_ l_ c_ h_ o_ written behind ace with line = acetylcholine?

oAlt

ever the quick one

@jafe your turn

jafe

2:42 PM

"starts" was the giveaway :)

CCCC: Cook, sorta (5)

oAlt

yeah i don't think i could have made that more difficult

and technically it's tylcholine written behind ace lol

jafe

ah i see, i parsed that all wrong then

oAlt

ohnoes

anyway

u got the essential components anyway heh

jafe

which makes sense since my version had "short letter" unaccounted for, now that i think about it

oAlt

yea it seems

jafe

2:48 PM

but a heart perhaps drawn on the outside could kinda sorta have been "line" :)

oAlt

yeah i see what ur getting at hahah

@jafe was the absence of an exclamation point intended or not? cuz assuming there is, i think you're cooking "SORTA" here and turning it into ROAST

jafe

that is correct

oAlt

oh gosh i need to make again noooo

slight nitpick about my earlier clue: could have used "on the front" instead of "on the outside"

jafe

i generally leave out the ! from &lit clues

oAlt

lol

Ankoganit

2:52 PM

@jafe this is really cute

yeah, neat find

thanks :)

@jafe nice

3:12 PM

nearly done

CCCC: jafe regularly goes to Soldier Stiv, head guard (5)

Deusovi

_A_E + GI + S_

oAlt

of course

@Deusovi your turn hahah

bobble

@melfnt I didn't think I had to put an edit summary in because I saw Deus didn't when he edited out the other single-use tags. If I do tag stuff like that again I'll put a summary in.

unrelated: my second Lit question got HNQ'd and now has 2k views. that's a LOT.

oAlt

epiccc

bobble

three Cs?

Also, I think the fact that it has "profanity" in the title may have helped :) ... it's on the first page still!?!?

oAlt

3:27 PM

@bobble i believe i've done that before hahah

bobble

hey, North!

Sciborg

3:46 PM

Hi bobble! :D

'borg!

Ackkkk

oh no?

My parents found out about my C- (well my D+)

I told them it was a C-

Sciborg

Oh dear

bobble

3:47 PM

oh no

Prince North Læraðr

And my mom went into this whole spiel about "you can do better if you really tried, you're smart enough" and threatened to make me drop all the stuff I was good at (mock trial, choir, band) because my "core classes" were in bad gradesa

Sciborg

:(

Prince North Læraðr

For a B+ in APUSH and a B- in physics (I just have a handful of missing assignments that I just need to turn in)

Deusovi

@PrinceNorthLæraðr ugh, that's awful - comments like that can really hurt people

Prince North Læraðr

And my dad's threatening to make me just pull out of high school and start working if I can't get my grade up in Pre-Calc

bobble

3:49 PM

I've tutored kids who were forced into tutoring by their parents - it's always clear that they're trying hard

Deusovi

CCCC: Help upset commentator with modifying speech (9)

Sciborg

You made a chatroom for math homework help and everything, you are trying your best. Not okay to accuse you of not trying

bobble

(it's also much less fun for either of us)

Deusovi

(agreed with both of the above)

matt

@bobble compared to the usual amount of fun?

Deusovi

3:51 PM

tutoring can be fun!

it's a lot of fun to see/help people get that 'aha moment', when suddenly everything clicks

bobble

Yes, I have fun teaching people who came into tutoring because they wanted to learn from a peer. People forced into tutoring generally don't like it, which rubs off onto me.

Sciborg

@PrinceNorthLæraðr You are probably in the bummed stage and not the solution stage, so just know we are here for you and if you want to talk about it further we can try our best to help.

Deusovi

^

Sciborg

(And you are smart as heck so don't go thinking you aren't.)

matt

virtual hugs

bobble

3:55 PM

Nov 4 at 1:27, by bobble

(yes, the cursed picture again)

John Dvorak

otherwise a perfectly normal person though

Deusovi

wait that's the concern about proportions you have?

Ankoganit

Yes, that's the longer than necessary part

matt

gah fine

Ankoganit

We were kidding, matt

Sciborg

3:57 PM

2

my contribution

bobble

poofy!

Ankoganit

:o

Nice!

Sciborg

North is best tree

John Dvorak

Nice

bobble

North, are you there?

Prince North Læraðr

4:00 PM

Yeah

I was waiting for the sub to come

Sciborg

?

Prince North Læraðr

Oh, I'm at school

My teacher wasn't here so waiting outside the classroom for the sub to come

Sciborg

Well, you are a smart tree and we love you.

Prince North Læraðr

I hate it though when people assume that I'm just good at math because I'm "smart". Not just my parents, but like other students too

bobble

"smart" does not necessarily translate to all subjects

Ankoganit

4:04 PM

That sucks

bobble

(example: me and geography)

Prince North Læraðr

Like because I'm good at my humanities (coughs getting an 82 on my test while barely reading cough) doesn't mean I'm great at STEM

Ankoganit

Being good at math is really more of a skill

Avi

hey, I am good at math because I'm smart

I'm just not good at math, though

Ankoganit

Kinda like how having strong fingers doesn't mean you can play the piano

matt

4:04 PM

it just means you have strong fingers

Prince North Læraðr

I'm not great at math in general most particularly because the format doesn't give me partial credit

Sciborg

It's possible to be a very intelligent person who also sucks at certain things, I've met NASA scientists and Nobel Prize winners who literally complain about how bad they are at philosophy and sociology and other subjects that aren't their favorite subject.

bobble

oof. my calc tests always gave partial credit.

Prince North Læraðr

I can do the right steps and even show I know the material but I get three questions wrong and because the test is out of six questions I get an 50&

Avi

I've found that as I niche myself more, my general skills deteriorate at an accelerated pace

Ankoganit

4:05 PM

@Sciborg very true

Prince North Læraðr

Half of humanities is "how well can you argue" and the other half is "how well can you write"

Avi

E.g., I sacrificed the ability to jump so that I could learn to do puzzles

Sciborg

I would consider myself pretty okay at brain stuff, and I absolutely suck at geography, history and spatial reasoning to the point where people have to slowly walk me through spatial puzzles.

Prince North Læraðr

I'm good at memorizing facts, so geography just kind of falls under that

Avi

Now I'm doing jumping jacks every day D:

matt

4:08 PM

hm

Prince North Læraðr

Numbers, dates, people, places, etc. Hence why even though I have an 88% in APUSH, I know that's because I'm not trying, because most of my energy is BEING delegated to AP Physics and Pre-Calc

sigh

Avi

oof

bobble

again, I'm willing to tutor you in your room if you want

Sciborg

It's tough to generalize and be good at everything, it's okay to not always be good at everything.

Prince North Læraðr

Right, but like

Avi

4:09 PM

I remember pre-calculus - my teacher required us to write down not just the answers and the work

but the questions as well

Prince North Læraðr

I just want to explain to my parents how difficult it is

Avi

hence why I failed a quiz, because I forgot to write down the questions D:

Sciborg

It might be good to explain to them that you are trying hard and need some extra help.

bobble

Do you want a script? We could help with drafting it.

Sciborg

That way they don't feel like you're just not trying, because you know you are and we know you are.

Prince North Læraðr

4:10 PM

No

Sciborg

It's totally okay to say that you might need more tutoring, might have to retake a class, etc. - no shame at all.

Prince North Læraðr

Right but "you won't get into any colleges"

"you have so much potential, why don't you use it"

Avi

Prove them wrong

matt

that is just mean

Sciborg

If you have to take another year of high school or maybe redo some classes, there is no shame in asking for that. They might want to talk with you about it obviously, but if they make you feel bad about it, that's on them, not you.

Prince North Læraðr

4:12 PM

I think I can raise my grade this unit

We're on trig, which makes much more intuitive sense for me

Sciborg

If you think you can, absolutely give it your best. But don't be scared or feel bad about yourself. This is totally normal and there's no shame in this at all. I want to emphasize that.

Literally I could tell you stories for hours about how much I struggled in college and screwed up in classes and made my parents question my life goals :p

Prince North Læraðr

My parents are worried I won't even get into a college at this point

Avi

I'd try to help but don't really know how

I was the epitome of "you have so much potential, but you don't use it"

Sciborg

Parents always worry about that stuff. It's what they do

Prince North Læraðr

I also just hate that my parents put so much emphasis on my STEM classes as though those classes are the most important classes in the world, and that all my other classes and clubs are "extrameous"

Forget that I have a 96% in English

Avi

4:17 PM

E.g. instead of preparing for classes I'd do side programming projects

Prince North Læraðr

Forget I ended WHAP with over 99.7%

Sciborg

That might be something you should talk about with them, if you're comfortable.

It sounds like you want to explain that and they don't get it

Prince North Læraðr

How do you even explain that kind of stuff?

bobble

My method has been to write up my thoughts in a Google Doc (this allows revisions) and then sharing a link with them.

Sciborg

"I know these classes are going rough, but I love these other classes. I know it's important that we address these bad grades, but can we look at these classes too and talk about our options?"

Prince North Læraðr

4:19 PM

Funny

I want to talk to them, but I'm so scared I'm just going to get shredded

bobble

Hence the Google Doc method

Sciborg

I don't know your parents obviously, but it's worth a shot if you feel like you can talk about it with them. They will probably want to work with you if they really want you to succeed.

Prince North Læraðr

"You want to go into music? But you barely practice." "Mom, I can't practice 4 hours a day like violinists do because I pay trumpet, and i also have you know OTHER CLASSES"

"Well, the musicians I grew up with all practiced like 6 hours a day" "Mom, it's because they play piano or violin" "Stop making excuses, if you really wanted to you'd do more"

^How a lot of our conversations turn out about classes

Sciborg

I'm not sure what more to tell you, it's important that this is your decision and that you do what's comfortable. It's gonna be a rough conversation so mentally prepare for some emotions.

Are we helping by talking it out, or are we stressing you out more? We can change the subject.

Prince North Læraðr

I don't know

bobble

4:23 PM

I have a new K.G. connect wall out where the flavortext is them being high

Prince North Læraðr

I don't want to flood this chat though, so I'm going to retreat into my grove

matt

@bobble ~~whistles~~ hm (i cannot whistle)

Sciborg

Please come back if you need support or want to talk, we're here for you

bobble

North's chatroom

Sphinx

1

Q: Connect Wall of Flags: Stimulants are Endless!

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #42: Wordless Connecting Walls Knockoff Gladys was quite happy about how their last puzzle was received. So happy, in fact, that I found a new note waiting for me today. They may have been, um, slightly buzzed while writing it. Hey, bobble! Seems you were...

knowledge visual geography connect-wall flags

0

Q: First Riddle Attempt

My first is young. My first is also a clipping. And my first will likely never have a crush. My second is well known and multiply defined in mathematics. It is defined in Geometry, Arithmetic operations, Group Theory and Topology. Can you find another important subfield of mathematics where my...

riddle mathematics word language

Sciborg

4:39 PM

Also, I am getting used to the screen reader and it's becoming surprisingly comfortable. I'm working on writing a little browser plugin to make Stack Exchange work better with this specific one

i.e. there are many parts of the site that it just completely cannot parse

bobble

Yay?

Sciborg

Yay!

It's really, really nice for small fonts and pictures especially.

bobble

I feel a bit guilty over how my flag connect walls are extremely non-accessible, but I'm not sure how to provide a transcription

Sciborg

No worries about those at all, zooming does the trick and you selected bright colors :)

bobble

Did you like the flavortext?