« first day (2385 days earlier)      last day (1239 days later) » 

12:40 AM
0
Q: Elections in the United States of Alfagonia

Bernardo Recamán SantosElections were held in the 45 electoral districts of the United States of Alfagonia. The Green Party won the election in 23 of the 45 districts. Alfagonia is made up of nine states of five disticts, each of the states in the shape of a pentomino. According to the Constitution of Alfagonia, the wi...

 
 
1 hour later…
2:10 AM
0
Q: What to do if OP insists on their *objectively* wrong answer to their own puzzle?

BubblerRecently a user posted a "puzzle" about a specific equation. I tried my best to come up with a solution that objectively solves both parts (which is mathematically sound as far as I can tell), but the OP keeps insisting that it is not their intended solution. Without accepting my solution or refu...

 
spicy
 
 
4 hours later…
5:53 AM
0
Q: Ghosted for a few minutes by a Suggested Edit?

ention everyoneRecently, I expanded the Review Queue list and saw a red dot on the Suggested Edits queue (if you don't know, that means that it's not empty), so I clicked on it (naturally). But as I was reviewing, I accidentally closed the tab, and when I hurried back to the queue, it was empty. After a few min...

 
 
1 hour later…
7:18 AM
2
Q: A slitherlink with only 3's

00xxqhxx00 As we know, 3's seems to be very rare in slitherlinks. This is the slitherlink with only 3's.

 
 
3 hours later…
10:47 AM
there was a new york mobster james FAILLA... seems like a reasonable string of letters to be used somewhere in an italian journalist's name?
 
11:37 AM
Interesting
 
 
2 hours later…
1:55 PM
0
Q: Six Directions of Cryptic Cluebulence

jafeAn entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #43: Variety Crossword Grids This crossword is a tribute to the 2002 album Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater. No knowledge of the music itself is required for solving. Each answer must be entered somewhere in the grid in the orientation giv...

 
ooh woke up just in time for this
 
hehee
 
2:10 PM
@jafe is 6's enumeration wrong?
 
wow, yeah
fixing
better check the others as well...
should be correct now
 
alright, thanks for checking!
 
2:32 PM
Wait
No oops
I thought it was the chain puzzle ;_;
 
update: this is hard
got a lot of short clues but the longer ones are eluding me
 
Hard for Deusovi??? No chance for me, then.
 
0
Q: Propositional Logic Puzzle

JamesLp"There is an island with two mythical creatures, the Komos and the Dragos. Komos loves eating visitors to the island while Dragos hates to eat visitors. One fine day, you mysteriously end up on the island and encounter two creatures, Blue and Red. The Blue creature smiles and tell you, “Don’t be ...

0
Q: What should Stiv's Christmas present be?

Prince Deepthinker5 clues when put together will form Stiv's wanted item this christmas. A fool without punctuation and excrement. (3) Novembxr, Decembxr. (3) What is before what is after a sting? Can it be sung? (2) Not single, but neither triple either. (4) Needed with both Sun and Wind and maybe a little w...

 
name drop detected
 
hey don't treat me as some sort of all-powerful solver - i have blind spots just like everyone else
hm, somehow i suspect that they didn't get stiv's permission here
 
2:53 PM
They also used two comments to reply to my one asking for clarification - it's part of a general pattern of their comments being more chatty than the rest. (I've been flagging a bunch of their comments as No Longer Needed)
@Sphinx needs a better, more specific title; I only fixed up the quote formatting and tagging
 
This is actually the second time recently...
1
Q: The Guild's Puzzle

Prince DeepthinkerA mighty warrior by the name of Stiv the Slayer has done enough by brawn to prove himself worthy of entering the Guild of 24/7rs. Now what is left is that he needs to prove that his brains are also up to standard so he is given a puzzle at the door. He, being over 9k iq works it out in seconds. C...

 
well then
that's... concerning
 
(And if Santa's blabbed what I've asked for then someone needs to give him some proper data protection training... I've always said him keeping that list was a leak waiting to happen...)
Yeah, I don't really get it
I mean, it's kinda flattering, but I don't think it does anyone any favours
Or adds any real benefit to puzzle quality
This meta post is relevant:
8
Q: Should we be referencing/using specific users in puzzles?

user20Something's been on my mind a bit lately. We've had a not-insignificant quantity of community-made puzzles that use specific users as part of the puzzles. Is this an issue that needs handling? I know I, personally, have come up a couple times in puzzles. Here's a short list of links, which does ...

 
yeah, saw that but there didn't seem to be a very clear policy that the community agreed on, so i didn't link it
 
Indeed - the votes are liberally scattered around that one!
At this point I'm not too worried, but if it keeps happening regularly I might just make extra sure my home address isn't available anywhere online...
Joking aside, I'll leave a comment on the post below yours
 
3:34 PM
well, did a bunch of bashing on the jafe cryptic and ruled out one of my three cases. taking a break now - maybe after a nap or something i'll get some of the clues i'm missing
 
@Sphinx @jafe Good God.
 
4:27 PM
I did find it weird to use somebody's name in a puzzle without their permission, and do it twice for some reason. There's no policy against it but it would be common courtesy to hop in here and be like "hey is it okay if I use your name in a puzzle and run it by you first"
I mean, as discussed previously, i would not ever use your names in a video game or anything, it's only something i joke about in chat.
 
5:00 PM
dang it, i missed Mick
 
5:37 PM
@Sphinx anyone have any luck with 24 or 32 here? these are the two long clues i have left, and without them it's very hard to place things
thinking 32 is PACK MULE but i'm not seeing the wordplay at all
 
C4 hint: I used James's name without asking him first. He is alive, so I suppose I could've asked first, but I didn't. Mea culpa.
 
hehe
 
@Deusovi 32, at a glance, I can't tell. 34, it might help if I knew what songs you have left. (I've not been working on this puzzle at all.)
 
The Glass Prison, The Great Debate, and About to Crash are the songs left
(and 24, not 34)
 
I have (I think) spent less time on this than you (and have certainly done less) but I also thought 32 looked like PACK MULE and also couldn't see any way to get that from the wordplay.
 
5:46 PM
(yeah, typo)
 
i am still terribly confused on the c4 lol
 
@Deusovi still nothing offhand
 
ah well, thanks for trying
down to only five clues left, and still can't place a single word :/
 
6:33 PM
seems like i misjudged how hard some of the clues are with no checking squares... :(
 
yeah, because of how this is constructed there's essentially no checking - it's 36 clues, and if you can't solve most of them you can't even begin to fit things in
the grid is very big
 
@msh210 Ha! This just caught me so much by surprise that I just snorted my drink out through my nostrils...!
 
oh well, posted partial. hopefully someone else will see it
 
7:19 PM
0
Q: Don't steal from the Riley community

ention everyone Steal my prefix and I'll belong. Steal my infix and I'll be heavy. Steal my suffix and I'll be strong. Steal my whole and I'll be gone. Leave me be, for I am a community.

 
 
1 hour later…
8:34 PM
2
Q: Another Riley's Imposter!

Misha LavrovI could not contain my enthusiasm for this new style of puzzle! Let's see if I've got what it takes. Here is a seven-letter word: ####### co#####: describes this puzzle because it's made up of many pieces. ##nta##: doesn't describe this puzzle, but maybe years from now it will. #####in: might de...

0
Q: Match the animals

chasly - supports MonicaMatch the animals Beagle Dalmatian Dog Pug Puppy Retriever Accipitridae Anura Arthropod Castor Gastropoda Poecilia Instructions There are two lists, each containing six items. The lists are in alphabetical order. Create a new list and thus match all the lists in threes.

 
 
2 hours later…
10:53 PM
Quick question:
when you have sin^2(x)-1, it expands to sin^2(x)-(sin^2(x)+cos^2(x)) which is sin^2(x)+-sin^2(x)-cos^2(x) right?
Basically -sin^2(x)-cos^2(x)=-1?
 
I'm not sure exactly what the question is, but I think all those equalities are true.
(So sin^2 x - 1 = - cos^2 x)
 
To uncomplicate everything I just said, is -sin^2(x)-cos^2(x)=-1?
 
Because I could just multiply each side by -1
Okay yea
 
Start with cos^2 x + sin^2x = 1 and negate both sides, right.
 
10:58 PM
I was unnecessarily confusing myself
 
I don't think confusing oneself is ever necessary :-).
 
I gotta stop overthinking things :P
While you're here, can you help me with some fraction properties? I keep on confusing myself in simplifying fractions when it's like a fraction divided by a fraction
Well, in The Grove so we don't spam this chat
@GarethMcCaughan If you're free^
 
i can take a look
 
11:27 PM
Deepthinker also brings up other users in comments randomly. One that I remembered & just looked up:
Is this the difficult puzzle you intended for Hexomino? — Prince Deepthinker Nov 6 at 13:19
 
Could probably flag those as irrelevant/unnecessary since comments are not for pinging people without cause.
 
'borg!
 
yeah, i've just deleted that one
 
Hey :D
 
hello!
 
11:31 PM
I do flag a bunch of Deepthinker's comments, but I feel bad flagging too many at one time because then the mods would have to handle all of them.
 
it's not a big deal, feel free to flag away
 
Sorry for not being on the past few days, went home for Thanksgiving and have been seeing family :)
 
I just got back from Very Socially Distanced Road Trip
 
Ooh, where did you go on trip?
 
I'd, um, rather not say. It's close enough to where I live to make me uncomfortable with sharing.
But it had some gorgeous views - one night we spent out specifically to take pictures of the sunset shining on the trees.
 
11:33 PM
no worries!! I hope you had fun :D
 
Did you see the "programmers' odds" clue in my Chain Puzzle? That was the joke I mentioned earlier
 
Yes :p I appreciated it
Forgot to upvote so have an updoot
 
updooty!
 
schmoodle kaboodle, have an updootle
 
I learned Hitori deductions during the trip, since I got hopelessly stuck on the last puzzle in the Fillomino pack
 
11:39 PM
huh, interesting - why hitori?
 
Never heard of Hitori deductions! What are those?
 
hitori is another [grid-deduction] puzzle
Hitori (Japanese: "Alone" or "one person"; ひとりにしてくれ Hitori ni shite kure; literally "leave me alone") is a type of logic puzzle published by Nikoli. Hitori is NP complete == Rules == Hitori is played with a grid of squares or cells, with each cell initially containing a number. The game is played by eliminating squares/numbers and this is done by blacking them out. The objective is to transform the grid to a state wherein all three following rules are true: no row or column can have more than one occurrence of any given number black cells cannot be adjacent, although they can be diagonal to one...
 
It had been bugging me that I was only able to solve Hitoris by intuition & random guessing, so I Googled "hitori deductions" and read up, then practiced on the Simon Tatham version
 
These look super fun
If you know a good beginner's pack I would love to try a few :)
 
not aware of any
 
11:41 PM
@bobble Oh, hitoris are really fun
 
hitori is probably one of my least favorites, just because scanning can get kinda tedious and there's not much room for clever global deductions - they're not super common because of that
 
Oh wait, I'm thinking of the wrong game
 
Ahh, okay. might still try a few to see if they're fun
 
What's the one where all the rows and columns have to add up to a certain number?
 
magic square?
box?
 
11:43 PM
No, it's a japanese name.
Starts with a T
 
if it's not that, can you describe the rules
 
Urm... looks slightly different
 
kenken?
 
oh, you probably know it as tomtom
 
11:44 PM
It did NOT start with a T :P
 
I'm not sure that's actually what I meant, but maybe I got the right one by accident
 
(which is the name for it on gmpuzzles, because thomas snyder has a very small tweak to the usual ruleset that makes it more interesting)
 
@Deusovi Actually, I think I confused it with Tekunube or whatever it's called
 
absolutely no idea what that one is
 
It's a grid-deduction puzzle here. I'm 100% sure I misspelled it
 
11:45 PM
I was actually thinking of kakuro
 
Oh wait, it is kakuro. Is ken ken the same thing?
 
oh
nah they're different
 
I can confirm I was thinking of Kakuro
 
kakuro
 
so many puzzle types
 
11:47 PM
 
Yup that's what I was thinking of
 
kenken
 
Kakuro*
Oh, I was confusing it with a made up word that is a blend of Nurikabe and Tetrikabe
"Tekunube"
 
There are exactly two Tetrikabe puzzles I know of, and both are made by me.
 
smh
@bobble Right. I had to look under your profile page, bc I knew that's where I saw it from
 
11:51 PM
file this under more Annoying Deepthinker Stuff: a quote from their profile page
> yours truly the Prince of SE, Deepthinker.
 
Huh. Looks different
I thought it used to be just "Prince Deepthinker"
 
username is still "Prince Deepthinker", but they're claiming to be the "Prince of SE"
 
Actually I think the ending of their profile page has always been the same ever since they changed their user name. I guess my brain never processed it as "Prince of SE"
I think I saw it as "Prince of Deepthinker, SE"
Or Prince Deepthinker of SE
@bobble Let them have their fun. Though I feel mildly annoyed that they changed it coincidentally after I had changed mine and comment to them a handful of times
I'm not saying they copied me
I'm sure it's just an odd coincidence
 

« first day (2385 days earlier)      last day (1239 days later) »