The Sphinx's Lair - 2020-11-27

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12:10 AM

@merrybot Please. I've posted a while slew of not-particularly-hard ones.

@PrinceNorthLæraðr cut branches off of, or put ornaments on?

12:22 AM

0

Q: Toxic Christmas Gifts for Riley?

What am I? For my prefix I received ri. Now I'm insecure. For my infix I received ul. Now I'm gloomy. For my suffix I received pe. Now I don't converse in person. Perhaps the gifts aren't to blame... even without them, my mood changes like the weather. Example: If my word is hop, the riddle ma...

riddle word wordplay affix-riddle

@msh210 why does the y disappear?

And, just remembered that 7 layer burritos are no longer sold at Taco Bell. Super depressing, since that's basically the only thing I bought from them.

12:45 AM

D:

@Avi amputation of terrifying = amputation of scary = scar(-y)

Prince North Læraðr

12:59 AM

@msh210 Cut branches off. A rather gruesome task, considering, you know, I'm a tree

1:25 AM

If you consider that you yourself are a part of nature... you're doing nature's work

3 hours later…

3:58 AM

Someone edited the "is my bad English hurting my puzzles" meta-post to... clean up the bad English. I'm feeling like rolling it back - thoughts?

also, this comment:

Oh yeah, one more thing. Grammarly Free is not really the best shot, but Grammarly Premium is basically having an English Professor next to you. I mean I am in 6th grade and don't know any professor, but it is sort of an exaggeration . — TroyD Nov 17 at 11:09

Someone is "6th grade" is likely not 13+

Detective Bobble on the scent of the offender

I am also Chef Bobble and Tutor Bobble

(occasionally. and I don't claim to be great at either)

4:14 AM

+1 to "roll it back"

(waiting for at least one more person to agree before acting)

user486313

sup everyone

hello!

user486313

hope the turkey was good for you all

user486313

hello @Deusovi

user486313

4:26 AM

@Deusovi do you like being a moderator?

user486313

I must sleep now

user486313

g'nite

uh okay, night

this is a strange interaction

user486313

tell me about it ... geez ...

4:27 AM

in response to your question, definitely - it can be annoying sometimes, but i like helping out a community i care about

user486313

I see -- nice

Deus, what do you think about rolling back the English cleanup edit?

0

Q: Another Yin Yang puzzle! Part two

Sorry about the last puzzle guys, I am sure this puzzle has only one solution this time. Also the solver of this puzzle can put up a Yin Yang puzzle if he wants to start a series. Rules of Yin-Yang: Fill each empty cell with either a black circle or a white circle. All white circles should be or...

logical-deduction grid-deduction

1 hour later…

5:39 AM

(Yin Yang is not really fun once you know all the "tricks" inherent to the genre...)

CCCC: Missing a French story editor, FT orders random ledes (11-3)

@bobble hmmm... where i live there are some people who are 13 years old by the time they graduate from elementary. and more than that, i checked the guy's profile once and turns out he lives in the same country as me

so i am not surprised (but of course we still need to check)

give benefit of the doubt then?

maybe not... there's still a bit of uncertainty in that aspect

@msh210 un + account + ed. + f_ o_ r_

5:53 AM

dang that was a lot to pack in the clue

as such, nice clue

6:08 AM

@jafe yep, well done

@oAlt thanks

6:51 AM

@oAlt last I heard, instructions to mods were to give benefit of the doubt… even slim doubt

7:02 AM

CCCC: Former communist, about to be replacing state's leader, is against current opposition extremists' banishment (15)

@msh210 Ah

wait I know the answer

it's a race :O

(I mean the competition of getting to the answer itself. "Race" is not the answer nor related to it :P)

hehe

EX + COMMUNI(s -> CA)T + I + O_N

epic

that's correct, well done!

Time to rework this other C4 material

7:15 AM

current = I?

Yeah from physics

Also I can't help but feel thrilled for some reason, so I'll be giving an early C4 hint

C4 hint 0: This cryptic clue is overdue.

@oAlt LIBRARY BOOK

hahah

For clarification purposes, the hint is legitimate, and msh210 is wrong. :0

And I am making a C4. I'm not throwing an "invisible C4" out here. :P

8:10 AM

C4 nearly done

8:32 AM

Incoming

CCCC: Perhaps a statement of victory: "I won three polo matches, running without swag but with gallantry, essentially" (2, 3, 3, 9)

1 hour later…

9:55 AM

@oAlt "I won three polo matches"* - LOOT + _A_ = we are the champions

Assuming that's the intended solution: I don't have one prepared and probably won't have time to prepare one until >30 hours from now. If y'all wanna wait for me, by all means; but if someone else wants to take it, that's fine too.

correct @msh210

10:12 AM

@oAlt the letter counts gave it away

Okay, I'll just do a quick one:

CCCC: Comfortable, quiet alcoholic (5)

10:44 AM

@msh210 agreed

@msh210 p + lush :)

@jafe yep!

CCCC: Sane to hold silver in? (3,3,4)

think i've seen a very similar clue for f+lush before

isn't swag > loot* an indirect anagram in oAlt's previous one?

you can anagram the other loot :P

or rather i can justify that you can anagram "I WON THREE POLO MATCHES" to any other string of letters you want, which includes "WEARETHECHMPIONSLOOT"

@oAlt this was my thinking

10:57 AM

(and regarding the earlier c4 hint, rip freddie mercury)

some 29 years overdue, then :)

>:(( :P

2 hours later…

12:48 PM

0

Q: Decipher the language

An alien planet called EMJ-26 has an alphabet that has letters switched around. Their language is identical to english but they use different letters. Here are the names of some countries on earth written in their language: QAREZSTZQWVTZQCQOQZUEFTWINCOMIKSTPQSQAMISLJQZQDEZEGKEXQSKZTLTQYHARHGLSQZ...

cipher language

2 hours later…

3:17 PM

0

Q: A monster slitherlink!

Does anyone want to have a stab at this monster slitherlink?

0

Q: A tribute to "Most ways to uncheck the king"

Today, we had the great privilege to see @Paul Panzer's answer being ticked at @thesilican's absorbing puzzle. I here propose a variant of his puzzle where it's not mandatory to use a legal chess game. Provide a checkerboard with as many chess pieces you want where: It is Black's turn to move Bl...

chess optimization checkerboard construction

3:28 PM

@Sphinx This is from Melon's Puzzles - would recognise it anywhere. It's also one of the first slitherlink images that comes up just by typing 'slitherlink' into Google.

3 hours later…

6:08 PM

@Sphinx I voted to reopen, edited, downvoted, and left a negative comment for the OP. Not a combination I ever expected to happen.

Prince North Læraðr

6:28 PM

Is "of" an acceptable splitter?

Also, I learned a new emoticon today

OTL

Adjective: OTL (not comparable)

(gaming) Initialism of over the limit.

Noun: OTL (plural OTLs)

(sports) overtime loss

also known as orz

7:26 PM

2

Q: Stacking word bouncer

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #43: Variety Crossword Grids blue: Am I (3<) a singer in a temple (3,5v) or in a a sun-starved (5^) metric conflict area (3,5>)? red: A disfiguring motherly animal(2,3,4v) with a not discrete behind (4,6<) has a flirty drink(3,5>) with an all-right animal ...

So open this and let people answer it, gosh. — J.Spencer 41 mins ago

bobble groans in the background

I've voted to reopen it because it no longer is unattributed. I've also downvoted due to low effort. I'm quite annoyed with the chattiness and un-usefulness of this user's comments.

bobble sighs heavily

(though I'm not sure if the comments are flaggable quite yet)

Prince North Læraðr

I don't really like their attitude

I'll vote to re-open it, but I don't know. Why are new users sometimes so rude?

I was never this rude

I've flagged two of their comments though

I was terrified that everyone thought my puzzles were bad and they just weren't telling me

Prince North Læraðr

That one you posted for being "rude" and another one for straight-up being "harassment, bigotry, or abuse". Idk, calling out another person/puzzle doesn't sit well with me

@bobble I was that user that actually read through the entire Tour and Help Center to make sure I was asking acceptable questions

Anyhow, C4 time

@PrinceNorthLæraðr I did that before I even made an account, when weighing cost-benefit of my first real online account.

Prince North Læraðr

7:35 PM

SE was also one of the first online account I made, aside from like Khan Academy and the like

First (and only) platform where I'm interacting with real ppl

SILVER is AG, AGIN? I doub it

No social media? I always had people at school asking me for my social media accounts and I didn't have them

Silver = Ag, yes

Prince North Læraðr

I don't have any social media. I think it's a waste of time

"What's your Instagram username" "I don't have Instagram" "Why not? Everyone has Instagram" "Because I don't care" etc.

Prince North Læraðr

Plus there are some weird people on social media. My life is fairly boring and I can go on Reddit for memes

My parents have been against social media from when I was young, and that rubbed off on me

I don't know, I might need to make a Twitter account one day. Maybe

I didn't know memes existed until my freshman year. I just didn't care about social media, or really anything besides reading books.

Prince North Læraðr

7:38 PM

Oh I do have a LinkedIn account actually. But that's for applying to jobs

Seriously, from around kindergarten to the end of 9th grade I was burning through about 1 book a day, sometimes two if I had the time, sometimes less if the book was long.

Prince North Læraðr

I don't really keep up with memes, so I don't get memes until like 6 months later. I just sometimes scroll through reddit because the stuff on there are funny. But not often

I read a lot too, but I read at a B+ speed, so it takes usually around 2~3 days to finish a decently long novel

But maybe that's also because I read in the evening/night when I'm done with my stuff

I read while walking, while in the bathtub, while using the bathroom, in the car, at the breakfast table (there was a no-books-during-dinner rule), during school & home lunches, once I finished my homework until dinner, during recess, during any sort of waiting, in class when I wasn't supposed to....

If I didn't have a book handy I would wander around to find signs/posters that I could read over and over and over

Prince North Læraðr

^Me in grade school

Except I couldn't read in the bathtub bc I was afraid the book would get wet

I dropped a library book in the bathtub once... had to spend an hour blow-drying it back to decent

I can do a bunch of stuff one-handed because the other hand was dedicated to book-holding and page-turning

Prince North Læraðr

7:48 PM

How do you keep the book dry?

I mean like doesn't the book still get sort of wet?

Not using much water (so the water level stays low) and having a towel close by to wipe off hands before picking up again

Prince North Læraðr

Ah. Smart

also, the "monster slitherlink" question is at -4, so even if it's reopened it won't be on the home page

0

Q: You can see a lot of me in the city

Part of me is above us, the other removes paint. I would say I am pretty tall. What am I?

riddle wordplay

Prince North Læraðr

That's... a riddle?

7:52 PM

It provides "indirect clues about an unnamed object or concept to be identified" - here specifically wordplay clues - so yes, by our definition it is a riddle

Prince North Læraðr

Geez, I've been makign CCs for about 2 and a half hours now, and I'm reading that riddle above as a CC

"monster slitherlink" user has +30 today, from an upvote per Yin Yang question, two upvotes on the slitherlink, accepting an answer, and 6 downvotes.

See, this is when I feel that downvotes should have a bit more weight to them

also, @Deusovi: what to do with a user who hasn't done anything, but whos profile is clearly spammy?

Prince North Læraðr

@Rubio used to take care of those users :((((

@bobble sigh Yeah. Here I'm spending hours developing a puzzle (of which is my favorite yet), and it'll probably net around 15 upvotes, maybe. Sometimes I feel like this site rewards quantity over quality, but what can you do

Because of the relatively high activity of this site, you post anything and you'll probably get at least one, two, or three upvotes, regardless of quality

My FTC word square is currently my highest-voted puzzle at +21. It took me around two hours of actual work time to pull together. My double-marching bands, which took literal months, is at +10

Prince North Læraðr

My highest scoring puzzle with 44 upvotes did take a really long time, but it was also hella clickbait-y

8:00 PM

"monster slitherlink" comments appear to have been cleaned up - yay!

Prince North Læraðr

Flagged some of them

only 2 left - Stiv and Deus

Prince North Læraðr

My Pokemon rebus did not deserve 17 upvotes and 5k views. I don't even know how- it was pretty sloppy rebus

"Pokemon" <-- that word is why

Prince North Læraðr

Probably. That rebus got more views than anything I've ever posted

well, 6k now

8:02 PM

second tetromino minesweeper is my most-viewed puzzle, at 1032 views

Prince North Læraðr

I have 2 2k viewed puzzles

My two maze answers have way more views than that

Prince North Læraðr

(well it did hit HNQ so)

Geez, why did I decide to make this a cryptic crossword

do you want help on clue ideas?

Prince North Læraðr

Sure, I guess. It's just there's ALOT

8:05 PM

you can OTS them to me, or I can give you my brand-spanking-new Puzzling-specific email address

Prince North Læraðr

Oooh

It's a lot of stuff, so it might be easier if I email you

You can OTS me your email :P

onetimesecret.com/secret/dxh7zzks8t8b731kum5pguhon94lsu1

I hope you like my profile picture :D

Prince North Læraðr

It'll say it's from "somebodysomebody1109"- that's me. That's my semi-spam account so don't freak out

Love the profile pic

ention everyone

8:34 PM

@bobble I disagree. There is no need to downgrade a good post to display one's grammar.

Besides, it's clear to the readers that they can look at the revision history of the 2 posts links in that meta post if they want to see what they meant.

Prince North Læraðr

8:47 PM

@bobble Okay it's almost ready to send. You understand that because I am explaining to you basically the entire puzzle, this forfeits your right to solve the puzzle once posted, right? Just have to make sure to get the disclaimer out there :P

I hereby surrender my right to solve North's Chain Puzzle

Prince North Læraðr

Okey dokey

@entioneveryone the context shouldn't be behind a few clicks - the slightly-off grammar really should be clear on first view. Also, that post was a question by the person with off English, and you editing it fundamentally hurts the point of it and makes it no longer "true" to its purpose. Or something like that. I'm not great at explaining myself under time pressure.

Prince North Læraðr

Sent

Hey @Stiv!

9:03 PM

@entioneveryone Got to be honest - I love that the person writing the post about having bad English wrote it in their natural 'bad English'! It instantly gets their point across, whilst also demonstrating the truth of the supportive answers which explain that even with this 'bad English' it's still possible to understand their gist. For once, personally I would suggest leaving it as it was first written, almost like a museum exhibit - it has more value to the community in its rough-and-ready form!

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Hey :) Just passing through tonight, I'm afraid! Working late before the weekend...

@PrinceNorthLæraðr received

Prince North Læraðr

@Stiv Ah, I see. Bummer :/

Tell me about it. It's 9pm here and I really should be shutting down and watching TV...

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble I almost sent my previous message right after you posted your message, which would've been really funny

But I have a huge project overdue, so no chance of that yet!

Anyways, have a good evening States-side and catch you another time!

9:07 PM

First impression of the grid: there seems to be less crossing than I would expect

also, 2-letter words??

First impression of the current clues: that's a whole lotta ddefs

I can work from the bottom up of the first list, or just down the second list. Which would you prefer? @PrinceNorthLæraðr

9:35 PM

user image

I found a mellowmelon Slitherlink pack, and this was the last puzzle

It has 8 solutions and you have to find all of them

Also (in case you haven't noticed), it's HUGE

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble You can help with the bottom half of the first list- it's shorter and I think I want a special sort of numeration for it anyways

I'll send you my 21-41 then when I'm done? Sounds good?

Prince North Læraðr

Sounds good! Thank you!

Also, my DNA report says I'm 2% Neanderthal. Not sure that's very accurate- I'm not sure how some monkey gene ended up in me

refrains from rant about genetics

Prince North Læraðr

Teehee

Prince North Læraðr

9:53 PM

@bobble What kind of rant?

In general, how you definitely share more than 2% of your DNA with Neanderthals, since every living thing shares a bunch of DNA in order to have necessary functions. So it's a bit misleading. The exact sequences may have changed a bit over time, but the general function and structure of important genes is fairly constant.

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Neanderthals are actually closer to humans than monkeys

Prince North Læraðr

@matt Yes, I'm aware. I was being satirical

hm, a satirical tree

Prince North Læraðr

I call homo sapiens monkeys too, don't worry

9:56 PM

oh I am definitely worried :p

Also, my dad is doing required anti-terrorism trainings, and for the question "what to do in this dangerous situation" he got points off for saying "help other people". Because apparently you're supposed to save yourself.

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble Welp

that is dumb

"just save yourself, let everyone else die, it'll be fine"

Can I make Sciborg appear in chat by determinedly hoping?

Prince North Læraðr

You could just @Sciborg them

And hope it works

10:03 PM

I'm starting to feel like Slitherink is NP-complete :P

Prince North Læraðr

10:16 PM

Huh, I just noticed something really interesting

SIL is the acronym for SILVER in something like a Finnish code? If I recall correctly, Jafe is from Finland

10:47 PM

@bobble i believe the usual policy is that if they haven't started spamming then we don't auto-delete

19

Q: What is the policy on destroying users with very spammy profiles but have not posted spam yet?

A little bit of background first: Over on Puzzling.SE, we've been nuking users that look very spammy, before they've had a chance to post anything. It began with posts like this, which advertised watching things online and stuff. So then we (I'm not a mod there, I just pinged them with links) st...

discussion profile-page spam account-destruction

meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=spammy+profile

(just because it's not worth the time to go through every profile, and most aren't really findable unless you're actively looking anyway)

@PrinceNorthLæraðr, I've made 10 clue drafts and will be leaving for now. Do you want me to send you my clues now or when they're all done?

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble You can send them now

did you get them?

Prince North Læraðr

Received. Thanks!

bye for now waves

Prince North Læraðr

11:01 PM

See ya!

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Nov '2027

The Sphinx's Lair

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