The Sphinx's Lair - 2020-11-28

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1:16 AM

0

Q: Does any one know the name (and solution) of this 3D wooden puzzle (33 pieces)?

I purchased this 3D wooden puzzle and wasn't provided with the instructions to reassemble it. I can't seem to find any information about it other than the source I bought it from. It has 33 pieces Does anyone know any information about it? Common name or even the solution?

geometry three-dimensional

1:29 AM

ah, a new user who helpfully includes lots of details and context for their question about a puzzle -- such a rarity

hahah

Should three-dimensional be edited back in? I removed it because it seemed better covered by mechanical-puzzles

i think it would make sense to be put in, but it doesn't really need to be there - the tags we have are already pretty good

is geometry applicable?

And it is very nice that the only real problem with the question was that it was missing important tags :D

applicable, but probably too general

no point in re-editing it back in

1:42 AM

eh, leaving the tags as-is then

1 hour later…

2:55 AM

0

Q: Another Straightforward 4-letters Crossword?

This is an entry for Fortnightly Topic Challenge #43: Variety Crossword Grids. Across 4. "___ and on" 5. "La ___" light 6. Aside from it 8. Diagonal 10. Firefly 12. Clothes shop 14. Supersede 16. -ism or -y 18. Area in Da Nang 21. "___ many times do..." 22. Dad and son 23. From readers Down 1. ...

1 hour later…

4:17 AM

the hunger games movies are better than I expected? what? this is odd

4:35 AM

0

Q: What are the following numbers?

The number sequence goes like this: 3412, 361, 51, 5312, 5342, 531, ...... What are the following FOUR numbers in this sequence? Absolute hint:

knowledge number-sequence

4:54 AM

also that announcer lady has way too many fancy styles

Prince North Læraðr

Okay, I'm going to apply to Barnes and Noble tomorrow! crossing my fingers

Well I have to create/finish my application first but still

So far, NONE of my applications have even been responded to in the past

I sent off my last college app today - haven't even tried to get a job

Prince North Læraðr

I really want to work at Barnes and Noble- normally I don't want to work, but I LOVE that place and if I work there, I get cool benefits

my mom worked at the local public library organizing books when she was a teenager, I would love to have that as a job

now there is a waitlist to volunteer to do that, because people want volunteer hours

Prince North Læraðr

You have to be 18 now to make-money-work at a library :/

5:01 AM

I don't think my parents would be comfortable with me working outside the house right now because COVID

Prince North Læraðr

My parents want me to WORK

They want you to apply a force over a distance?

claps and groans at the same time

Prince North Læraðr

ugh

@bobble Socially distanced?

hopefully, otherwise... umm... I can't think of a good physics pun here

Prince North Læraðr

5:14 AM

Good

:P

Hahah

5:51 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr barnes & noble is like amazing

1 hour later…

7:16 AM

Does "At the start" act validly in "At the start, having odd temperature, having high temperature (3)" (= HOT)?

4 hours later…

10:50 AM

0

Q: Ancient character sequence

What is the next character in this ancient sequence: a, a, a, a, n, a, a, a, a, a, a, ? What is your reasoning?

knowledge letter-sequence

1 hour later…

Gareth McCaughan

11:51 AM

@oAlt I guess you might complain that it should be "starts" or something, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't notice any problem if I actually encountered that construction in a cryptic crossword and it's definitely been used in e.g. respectable UK newspaper cryptics.

This one's from the Guardian about a month ago: Anyone can edit this when it's keyed in at the start (4), solution WIKI.

(No, I don't have all the last month's Guardian crosswords in my memory, I did a web search for "at the start" restricted to fifteensquared.net.)

12:19 PM

mm

i see :0

3 hours later…

2:59 PM

0

Q: Does this alphametic have only one solution?

I could only get one answer for the following alphametic. Can you confirm? All 4 lettes are separate digits from 1 to 9. ETAS, SEAT and SATE are 4 digit numbers NO Programming please

no-computers alphametic

1 hour later…

4:14 PM

1

Q: A 4-D Cryptic Crossword

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #43: Variety Crossword Grids This puzzle is a cryptic crossword, but with a twist...literally! The grid presented is a 2-dimensional representation of the actual grid, which is embedded on a Klein bottle, and thus has no edges. The top and bottom edges sho...

cryptic-crosswords four-dimensional

@Sphinx @JeremyDover this looks AWESOME

In general the crosswords released as part of the fortnight have been extremely high quality.

Prince North Læraðr

5:19 PM

@Sphinx That's siccckkk

Also, just realized today's the last day for variety crosswords, and I still haven't finished mine :((((

I had a crappy Klein bottle crossword earlier this week, but I ended up canning it. Luckily found just enough time to get this one done.

Prince North Læraðr

It's like solving 6 crosswords!

Or nine, I guess

5:36 PM

no rules against releasing a variety crossword after the fortnight is over

also, I'm looking through the latest Nature marine bio research to choose a paper to write up, and just look at this title:

> Global phylogeography suggests extensive eucosmopolitanism in Mesopelagic Fishes (Maurolicus: Sternoptychidae)

WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THAT MEAN????

Prince North Læraðr

Well obviously

I don't know

I understand 1/2 of those words

Prince North Læraðr

Same

I understand like every other word

who do you think could parse it?

Prince North Læraðr

Gareth

100% Gareth :P

5:49 PM

shall we ping him?

Prince North Læraðr

Sure

@GarethMcCaughan, North thinks you can parse this obscenely scientific title

Gareth McCaughan

I can make some guesses. Meso- means "mid", pelagic means relating to the coast, so I guess mesopelagic means "living in shallowish water". I haven't heard "eucosmopolitan" before but there are "eusocial" insects, ones that live in colonies with all of them being genetically identical, so that they all behave with a sort of perfect altruism, so I'm guessing eucosmopolitan might be something similar on a large scale -- schools of fish that are all super-closely related (perhaps all ...

Prince North Læraðr

Wow, he's actually trying

Watches with awe

Watches alongside North

Prince North Læraðr

5:55 PM

"phylogeography"?

Gareth McCaughan

... clones somehow, though I didn't think that happened in fish). A phylum is one particular sort of taxonomical division (a very high-level one, between "kingdom" and "family") and I guess phylogeography means looking at genetic relationships between populations in different places.

But at least one of these things must be wrong.

Because surely "phylogeography" if it means that can't tell you about anything as "genetically fine-grained", so to speak, as colonies of fish that are all very closely related.

The abstract of the article had something about firmly separating some populations of fish into different species due to different genetics (I couldn't understand it very well)

Gareth McCaughan

Global, presumably, means just what it says -- they've looked at things over the whole world.

Any of my guesses could be wrong, but the one I think most likely wrong is for "eucosmopolitanism".

(Looking that one up now.)

ah, it's kinda the opposite of what I thought

so of course cosmopolitanism in humans means, so to speak, "taking the whole world as one's city", and the corresponding term in biology means when a species is distributed very broadly.

And "eucosmopolitanism" is apparently something of a neologism -- not just a technical term but one recently made up and not widely used -- meaning "a true, natural, and prehistorically global (or extremely broad) distribution" (that's a quotation from the paper that seems to have introduced the term).

So I think the rest of my guesses are right. They've looked at worldwide distributions of species of near-coastal-dwelling fish and found evidence that lots of them are very broadly distributed around the world's coasts.

see, that title makes much more sense :D

Prince North Læraðr

Is sqrt(a)*sqrt(b) sqrt(a*b)?

6:06 PM

yes

Prince North Læraðr

Okay, just double checking

What about sqrt(a)-sqrt(b)? Is it just sqrt(a)-sqrt(b)?

yes

Prince North Læraðr

OKay

Gareth McCaughan

you need to be a bit careful about that

sqrt(-1) times sqrt(-1) is not sqrt(-1*-1), at least not the way you would normally define square roots

Prince North Læraðr

Ah, good thing to remember. Thankfully, I'm working with trig, so I don't expect to run into sqrt(-1) anytime soon

Gareth McCaughan

6:09 PM

if u is a square root of a and v is a square root of b, then uv is a square root of ab, but not necessarily the square root

yeah, some stuff doesn't work once you leave the realm of reals

Gareth McCaughan

I think something's gone astray above -- when you asked "What about sqrt(a)-sqrt(b)? Is it just sqrt(a)-sqrt(b)?" that looks to me like the exact same thing twice. Am I missing something?

I think he was confirming that you can't say sqrt(a)-sqrt(b)=sqrt(a-b)

Prince North Læraðr

^

Gareth McCaughan

ah, right

6:37 PM

Still not sure how jafe managed to release 3 full variety-grid cryptics in the one fortnight...

Prince North Læraðr

He's jafe

yes, that is true

Hello!! I have so many notifications oh my goodness :p

'borg!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi!!!

6:50 PM

go and read up!

Oh lordy, this will take me a bit

There we go, I think I'm mostly caught up - how have you guys been?? :D

good - Thursday was (as my parents pointed out) the first time I've had a Thanksgiving dinner with grandparents!

hey mick!!

Aww that's really fun :D

Hi Matt!

we always would visit them for Christmas only, since there is more time for that school break

6:59 PM

week was pretty good :)

I bet they were really happy to see you!

anything new with Screeny?

do you have updates on: SHIELD, Screeny, Poofy, Statue Parks, How To Train Your Dragon sequels, etc.?

+ pse boss rush?

Screeny is on break since I needed a mental break from writing code, we watched some more SHIELD after we caught up on Mandalorian, Poofy didn't come with me to Thanksgiving but I'm back at the apartment now so he's back on my desk, and the How To Train Your Dragon books are still awesome :)

7:02 PM

yay!

Had a really nice Thanksgiving with family this year, it was a great break.

Glad you guys had a good holiday too :)

only bad part about Thanksgiving was there was more than the normal referring to the kids as "girlies", "our girls", "my girls", etc.

on one of the days I was most definitely not feeling like a girl

Yeahhh, same - the only bad part of my holiday was the misgendering, but at this point I'm used to it. Don't let it ruin your holiday :(

I didn't let it affect my hoiday, seeing as I had a holiday

My hands are cold, sorry :p

7:06 PM

are you being Blanket Person?

I am being a Blanket Person, yes

The heat in my apartment is still what professionals call "completely not working"

no, professionals call it "pay me money to fix it"

that too

Or maybe I can convince the bobblies in my walls to fix it

or maybe they're the ones sabotaging the heat

oh my god

they're trying to freeze me out, it must make my puzzle juices taste better

what if they're making Borg-sicles

7:11 PM

I'm supposed to be writing up a paper about zooplakton biomass and surface-level primary productivity, but it's taking me 3x the normal amount of time because it's boring and I'm being lazy.

scientists apparently release less research papers Thanksgiving week, so I had less choices

Eek

did you enjoy the crazy title that we got Gareth to dissect?

my paper writing strategy was always to stare a blank document for like 2 hours while i do something else, then go into a hyperfocus rampage and write it in like 20 minutes

And yes, i enjoyed the Gareth pinging :p

meanwhile I just finished eating a bagel

Was it a good bagel though

7:14 PM

yes

it was

i see

hot take: i hate bagels

all kinds?

fight me

there is no good bagel

I like cheese and chocolate chip

chocolate chip bagel? never heard of it

7:17 PM

bagel textures to me are either sandpaper or mush, can't stand it

also I like salmon cream cheese, except not on chocolate chip bagels

Salmon cream cheese is pretty good, that's fair

my bagels are always very boring

(ie, plain on plain)

Anyone who can just... eat a plain bagel and not choke is like dark magic to me

i assume that is not good?

7:19 PM

How do you eat it plain????

Teach me your magic???

I just do?

parents saying "we only have bagels for breakfast" and being hungry

Fair point

don't tell them

one of these days i'm going to post an impassioned tiktok rant about bagel textures

7:24 PM

hm

hey msh!

@Sciborg perhaps you just haven't had a good bagel

@Sciborg hi

What would you define as a good bagel?

I'm open to new experiences

chocolate chip bagel, freshly toasted (so it's warm and soft) and the chocolate chips are a little bit melting out

@Sciborg One that has good taste and texture? I know I couldn't find a good bagel in all my years in St. Louis, for example. (Though I was limited to the kosher ones, so that's not saying much.)

7:28 PM

hmm... toasted chocolate chip bagel that's softer sounds not too bad.

maybe I'll run to the grocery store later :p

did you make any more salted ice cubes?

I had some ice cubes left in the tray that i forgot about, so I made one more salted one and used the rest in a smoothie :P

anything interesting from SHIELD you wanted to mention?

We watched 5 and 6, the skydiving sequence was pretty rad

Fitzsimmons is hecking adorable

you have been converted, then?

7:35 PM

Usually my ships are exclusively gay ones, but i might make an exception for this ship

They are really cute together

both Fitz and Simmons have gay ships I know about - Simmons with Skye, Fitz with Mack (who you'll meet next season)

quietly googles

Ah, so it's called "Skimmons" :p

yes it is :D

i'm a simple person, i see gay, i ship it

The show is really very good though, had to watch these last ones without Partner but I'm enjoying it a lot.

The writing and acting is excellent

both of the slash pairings, in universe, are just bestest friends. only friends. why would you suspect anything else?

7:40 PM

of course

Prince North Læraðr

I need some help for math, @bobble you available?

(i'm here, hello)

I love shows where it's super obvious two of the same-gender characters have insane chemistry but the show pretends super hard that they don't

hello Deus :p

Something else nice: Fitz gets a lot of really good disability storyline stuff next season, which doesn't go away magically and he just learns to adapt

Aww, I like those

7:42 PM

though of course by the time you get deeper into the show, absolutely everyone needs therapy badly

Basically all the shows i enjoy these days can be summed up as "Everyone Needs Therapy"

do you need therapy after watching them need therapy?

covered my eyes for the eyeball scene, so i think i'm okay :p

my brother talked me into watching Sputnik with him over the break though, and after that i needed some therapy for sure

okay, so just checked. Eps. 7, 8, and 9 are mostly one-offs, 10 has a major plot development, and then there is eh sorta-plot stuff, then 16 has extra plot stuff and then 17-the end is all PLOT PLOT PLOT

Okay, so 10, 16 and 17 are the really important ones

I know there's gonna be a Big Twist but wasn't sure when that would happen

7:50 PM

you could honestly skip all the eh-plot in about 3 lines of explanation

I'll still watch them all, but i'll just pay extra attention to the Plot Ones

warning, i will almost definitely start shipping Skimmons now :p

17 is the one with Big Twist, part 1 and 19 is Big Twist, part 2

Got it

The Fitz-Mack one is largely from how Mack is nice and lets Fitz get better at his own pace while everyone else just dismisses Fitz because he can't perform at his previous level

Awww

maybe i'll have two ships

7:55 PM

last season has both Fitzsimmons with much declarations of love, and Fitz-Mack and Skye-Simmons with much declarations of how important their friendship is.

though less Fitz-Mack because some spoiler plot stuff

"friendship" sure, sure

best friends

close friends who go everywhere together but definitely aren't together

In Season 4 the Skye-Simmons get a special "it's us against the world" plotline

just them working together, trying to rope others in but mostly just trusting each other

with their "friendship"

7:59 PM

0

Q: More mysterious fractions

Let's have the following sums of fractions. $\frac{36020}{7203}+ \frac{36025}{7204}+ \frac{36030}{7205}+ \frac{36035}{7206}+ \frac{36040}{7207}+ \frac{36045}{7208}=F$ $\frac{15363}{5120}+ \frac{15366}{5121}+ \frac{15369}{5122}+ \frac{15372}{5123}+ \frac{15375}{5124}+ \frac{15378}{5125}=K$ The sum...

Skye declares how much she ships Fitzsimmons at the start, to make sure you know it's just friendship

heterosexual writer #1: how can we make sure everyone knows these characters are straight
heterosexual writer #2: i got it, watch this

shippers: Look, they're working to save the world with the power of their "friendship"

seems totally straight to me

Mith, you came at the perfect time

If I remember correctly, Simmons has a tearful declaration of how important Skye is to her later in Season 1, and also a tearful declaration of how important Fitz is to her after that. The only real difference is that the Fitz one involves kissing.

8:04 PM

seems VERY HETEROSEXUAL to me

I think the Fitzsimmons shippers can't count you in their number any more

look, i'm a complicated person

can't a person have a straight ship and a gay ship of the same person

is it a poly ship now

8:06 PM

it could be but it doesn't have to be

there are no rules

I'm not super into shipping

what about the rule that you can't ship someone with themselves... oh, right, alternate realities

she should follow her heart and do what makes her happy

All characters are ace unless otherwise stated

fair fair

8:12 PM

I mostly ship characters when shows make too big a deal of clarifying that These Two Characters Are Definitely Not Gay and it's fun to speculate about if they secretly might be

(also I know nothing about AoS, except that a couple of my friends are really into it)

Highly recommend watching AoS if you get a chance, it's a great show :)

8:25 PM

@Sciborg unless, of course, the two characters are already gay (such as in a particular Star Trek but I'm not telling you which one)

ah yes, Spork

and the remake with Sulu, presumably

@jafe all ther(Ag)e. Very nice clue!

@Sciborg actually no

wasn't there Sulu in Star Trek Beyond?

that was a nice clue!

8:29 PM

@Sciborg yes

not the people I had in mind though

@Sciborg I know little about Star Trek but have seen some original and TNG episodes and am pretty sure Sulu is in one of them

Though it's been many years, so I'm not sure.

They heavily imply it in TOS, but only in Beyond did they confirm

Beyond that though, I have no idea who else there would be

@Sciborg Takei was actually annoyed about that I believe

He was, yeah

Which is understandable, just because the actor is doesn't mean we can always assume the character is

anyway, I was not thinking of Sulu

8:38 PM

then who?

well, unless you want spoilers for star trek discovery...

oh, i thought you were talking about the ones before that. i was trying to rack my brains for anybody in TNG

yeah

Q

Q for sure

8:41 PM

what about Q?

can i get a "g" for "genderfluid"

there's GQ

and totally had a crush on Picard

yes

like, not even a question

8:44 PM

there is no debate

w- what is happening

many things

that doesn't exactly help

you can't tell me you watched the Q episodes and thought "yes, this seems straight" :p

9:07 PM

@msh210 thanks! that's correct, of course

That was a good C4, "silver" = "ag" is a fun trick :D

0

Q: Sixteen cards on a table

Sixteen cards numbered 1 to 16 lay on a table. Anne and Clare each take four cards. Anne's cards add up to 23, while Clare's add up to 48. Bernard and David also take four cards each. The product of Bernard's cards is 4480, while the product of David's cards is 1050. Which four cards did each of ...

9:43 PM

CCCC: Exultant shout: "Energetic activity at night! Lots of women!" (5)

10:24 PM

Bobble, you're back :D

Would you like to see another bunny picture?

Very much yes

I am attempting to blur the background because there's some stuff there

user image

bunny is trying to hide under the other bunny

it isn't working

BUNNIES

is the bunny successfully hiding?

10:30 PM

no, but bunny is trying and i love her

anyways, do you have puzzly stuff to talk about?

Not at the moment, I've been having a mini-nap on the couch and puzzling would require getting up

there was another Vasilis (?) puzzle today that got some downvotes, it seems

yep, though I'm ambivalent on whether to close

People were debating in the comments, i'm not sure whether it's close-worthy either

Mathematics puzzles are not my thing

this reminds me - @Deusovi, are you available for help solving the giant quintuple-chimera Fillomino?

I have deduced exactly one border and am stuck on the rest

10:37 PM

giant quintuple-chimera?

this sounds terrifying, please elaborate

user image

so, here's the ruleset - it takes half of the page

Oh... my god

user image

and here is my current board-state: the only border I've added to the initial arrangement is the one between R9C2 and R10C2

i'm not even the one solving it and i already have an aneurysm

I have some global things I know - the 1s on both sides must be seeing the same large number, and that large number only, otherwise if one was seeing a lower number it would also see the large number.

I think that it's the same number for all of them, but I can't confirm that because the snake is messing up my proof

The number also probably has to be 7 or greater, because it must be bigger than the others and no consecutive + no rectangle means no 2, so 3 - 5 - 7 to keep same numbers from not touching

10:42 PM

aieeee

but I'm having trouble making any deductions with all of this global sorta-knowledge

oh no, 'borg, do you need help?

this puzzle is an abomination of God

user image

here's one without any givens that I solved without help, and I was so proud of myself

(from the same pack linked before, by the way: mellowmelon.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/pack04ff2-v1mgl.pdf)

it's only a Skyscrapers

Nice! :D

You are a smart crown

aww

so can you help me solve the giant quintuple-chimera Fillomino?

10:48 PM

oh lordy no

i'm only human

this requires the divine intervention of Deus

Deus, Lord of Puzzles, we summon thee

mystic chanting

We bequeath thee!

Gift unto us your Wisdom!

perhaps we have to provide a sacrifice?

i am willing to sacrifice my third favorite hat for this occasion

what does it look like?

10:54 PM

well... maybe my fourth favorite hat

but he has to promise to give it back

also, if you go to The Grove, you can watch in awe as Gareth presents some sort of imaginary number proof of the sin and cos addition formulas

oooh

hang on, let me make a demonic summoning circle so we can summon deus. i have some leftover halloween candy

unfortunately my apartment doesn't allow candles so... snickers bars

comment under a complete non-answer (providing an answer to a single clue in a larger crossword):

> Welcome to Puzzling! I think your answer is valid :)

If it's just a single clue, rot13 in a comment would have been much preferable to an entire answer.

new user, so I understand why it isn't a comment - but it's much better off deleted, and then they can get rep elsewhere to earn commenting privileges

11:07 PM

Definitely good to be gentle about it, new Puzzling users don't always know not to post partial answers - made that mistake myself

hey, matt's back :)

hey mick! probably won't be back for long

but I am back

11:37 PM

Bobble how is the quintuple chimera puzzle going?

I still haven't made any progress

I started it like a week-ish ago, and I got that one line only

To be fair, that's more than i would have gotten in like... a month of staring at it

I think your demonic summoning circle didn't work

but i put so many snickers bars in it!

we may have to change tactics

he has a cat right? we kidnap the cat and hold it as hostage

11:43 PM

nooo! we cannot bring that precious baby into this

how about we take the cat and you get to play with her and snuggle?

that is reasonable, i accept

DEUSOVI SCIBORG HAS NAIA

HELP US WITH THE PUZZLE OR I'LL GIVE HER EXTRA SNUGGLES

DON'T TEST ME

just got here uh what's going on

11:47 PM

1 hour ago, by bobble

user image

ah-ha!

I was asking for any help with the giant quintuple-chimera Fillomino

It's Walls, Skyscrapers, Snake, Non-consecutive, and No-rectangle

also, Sciborg, you have to give Naia back now

she is best cat and i love her, but you may have her back

Prince North Læraðr

What did I just join?

we attempted to summon Deusovi, and then we kidnapped his cat

11:50 PM

It makes perfect sense

ah yeah - i don't know if i ever actually did that puzzle

so let's tackle it

did you see my "vague global deductions" comments?

yep

do you agree with them? any help proving them?

(sorry one sec)

11:53 PM

user image

when you get back - here is an annotated grid, where same letters have to be part of the same mino or all part of the snake

yep

and either d or e must be snake

i think

(sorry, math is happening in the grove)

I can wait

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Nov '2028

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