12:07 AM
@Sciborg, we can now confirm that Deus is a wizard:
in The Grove, 30 secs ago, by Deusovi
(it's ok bobble magic will soon be happening)

Canon confirmed

0

hello there = llehht oere Voldemort's Wrath = dloVrome s'ttarWh This is weird, right? = sihT si riewr ,dthgi? Just figure out what is happening to these words. = tsuJgif eru tuotahw si ppahnineot geht w essdro. Let me know what you come up with! = teLk em wontahwuoy moc pu etiw !h Note: It's n...

@Stiv Oh, okay!

12:23 AM
0

This is the third installment of the Fortnightly Topic Challenges Rerun described here and the forty-fourth installment of the FTCs overall, with topics suggested and voted on here. This fortnight's topic is "Introduce a new grid deduction genre to the community" (suggested by Bubbler) and will s...

12:37 AM
ooh, got a proof that the number the 1s on the edges (like R1 or C1) see is the same as the 1s on the almost-edges (R2 or C2)

ahh nice

actually, drat it only shows that the edge number can't be greater than the almost-edge number

so all of the 1s see the same number?
hm

because if the number for edge-1s is larger than almost-edge 1s, then it is stuck on the edge and is a rectangle

hm yeah
i was thinking along those lines but there could be some weird situation that screws it up

12:39 AM
the 1s ignoring the snake is messsing up my proofs
@Sciborg more proof
in The Grove, 1 min ago, by Deusovi
@bobble the bold formula was us gathering reagents for the magic, and now the actual magic is happening

I knew there had to be an explanation
Hey Bubbler! :)

ah wait bobble that also gives us that all the 1s' numbers are the same
...i think
(whoops mistyped; fixed)

What is this dark magic

okay, stuff about the numbers the 1s are seeing: 1s on opposite ends of a row/col see the same number. The almost-edge 1s see >= the number of the inner 1s. These numbers probably have to be >=7. The only problem I'm having tying this all together is the snake can be in the 2x2s at the corners and make ... oh wait IT CAN'T BE IN A 2X2 BECAUSE SNAKE RULES

yep!
snake rules help here a lot

12:47 AM
nor do the given edges allow it to hug the corner
or only touch the outer bit of the 2x2, because then it traps a rectangle
but it can snake out & away from the corner

hm, if there's some way to prove that pink is not the snake, then we can get all the numbers around the outside to be the same

pink?

oh whoops
i didn't share my image
colored some things for easy reference

hmm, noticed that the Ls that would maximize snake coverage of the snake in the corners are rotationally symmetric

wait actually. numbers around the outside can't be the same, can they
hm no i think i'm wrong

12:56 AM
so if red corner used its L, then R2 & C1 must have same, (in R2C1) , and maybe extend that logic to other corners at the same time?

ooh i think i see a thing
if R9C10 is a snake, then it must have its endpoint there or R9C9

also I will have to leave soon, as in like 2 minutes. could this adjourn to later? (~3 hours from now ish)?

sure

(oh, and I've seen why either pink or green is snake)

we can't block yellow into being a rectangle
so either the snake ends in the yellow corner (yellow itself, or just above it), or the numbers aren't all the same (which implies that the snake ends in pink)

1:23 AM
0

Start by placing number $1$ anywhere on an infinite square grid. Now place numbers $2, 3, 4, \ldots, K$ in order. A number $k$ can be placed if the following rules hold: It must be adjacent (horizontally or vertically) to the previous number $k-1$. It must have at least one neighbour (horizontal...

2:13 AM
0

There is an infinite grid of squares. In one of the squares, there lives an amoeba (marked as a circle in the following pictures). Amoebas cannot move, but they can perform their unique action: an amoeba can split itself into two amoebas, which are identical to the original one, and each will occ...

1 hour later…
3:18 AM
eeeek, so... i came back this morning from staying at my family's house for thanksgiving for a couple days. and now my mom just called and is like "hey mick, don't mean to alarm you, but your dad just came down with a fever and we want to know if you feel okay..."
this is mildly terrifying

oh no D:

what do i do? D:
i guess i just kinda have to chill at my apartment and get food delivered until i can be sure and get tested
this is the first time i've ever really been exposed, i've been so careful with masking and distancing up to this point that i was never a close contact

3:37 AM
Deus, I'm back if you can help with the Fillomino again
also @Sciborg that is quite a D: situation

i was having such a good day, too :p
How is the Fillomino going now?

also, Sauce Plan wasn't implemented because the supplier un-canceled that sauce

They un-canceled it??? That's AMAZING!
Now you get to have the sauce again!! :D
Right?

yes, it was delicious

3:43 AM
what Sauce Plan?
also i will finally have a chance to try those salted ice cubes of yours tomorrow

sure, can come back to the fillomino, one sec

They canceled bobble's favorite sauce at a restaurant which sucked, so we were brainstorming ways to replicate it, but now the sauce has been un-canceled.

did the sauce being canceled suck, or did the restaurant suck?

The sauce being canceled is what sucked

i mean.... :p
2 mins ago, by merrybot
also i will finally have a chance to try those salted ice cubes of yours tomorrow

3:46 AM
They're surprisingly good

hm
how exactly am i supposed to get the salt in/on the ice cube?

I would hold it in my hand and salt with the other hand, then pop into mouth

You can also grind some salt onto a paper towel, and then you roll the ice cube around in it.

interesting

I need to stay in this chatroom so I don't have a panic attack thinking about having to quarantine for the next 14 days, this is a good distraction :p

3:49 AM

spend the time solving all the statue parks

i will definitely have plenty of time to do puzzles

time to both do puzzles and window-smash while attempting to do puzzles

unfortunately i'm having to cancel all the in-person stuff i had scheduled for the next two weeks :( but Partner is offering to pick up my groceries which is really nice

yayyy
also, i assume window smashing is not good?

3:54 AM
:0

Window-smashing is our term for my baby bird self hitting obstacles in attempts to solve Statue Parks

for what it's worth, will be praying for you and your family @Sciborg

thank you, i'm kinda freaked out at the moment so i appreciate <3

<3

3:56 AM
Can you work from home?

<3

Yup, I was doing most of my work from home anyway so that's no big! i'm mostly just trying to make sure my parents are okay and that i can plan for not leaving the apartment for a while.
i'll pray for you guys too, everyone can use prayers <3

I'll hope strongly in your direction, since I'm not sure about prayers

that's appreciated too, thank you <3
Ooh, I didn't even notice the new FTC, that's a really fun one!

Same except I don't know how to start making a new one from scratch

4:01 AM
I'm still learning the deductions of my chosen genre

This tempts me to try and invent some kind of crazy Statue Park hybrid with weird tetrominoes

:)

Hopefully a lot of fun new grid genres get invented when this challenge is over :p

CMC: statue park that is also a masyu

what??

4:06 AM
@Sciborg As a distraction, a Doodle Request: a group of bobblies trying and failing to set up a tent

@bobble Will do
How would you go about designing it so it follows both Statue Park and masyu rules? It seems mutually exclusive

for masyu, you can just ignore the tetrominoes

Hmm... maybe I could call it a "Parkyu" :p

yes
or maybe a Statyu Park?

4:08 AM
OH MY GOD YES
"Statyu Park"

:D

i need to make this immediately

Hahahah

but first the doodle
see, now you have me completely distracted :p

good, good

4:12 AM
and now my friend is sending me kitten pictures on discord and bae is texting me cute stuff to cheer me up, i love all you guys so much

<3333

this man is a treasure

so many exclamation marks!!

I'm Mary Poppins y'all!

i highly doubt that, bobble :p

4:15 AM
He's exclamationing his way into my heart dangit

(quote by Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)

That scene was my favorite :p

ah yes, verbification shit, that's a noun
[to self]: ok matt, enough with the linguistics

how far has the Doodle come?

Tents are hard to draw but it's coming along
can i have the bobblies wear little camping backpacks?

4:19 AM
of course they can

oh that would be so cuteeeeee

one of them is trying to read the instruction manual

lol :p
hey north!

North! :D

still doodling?

4:30 AM
Almost done
4

the tent is about to fall down

they're trying their best :p

they don't seem particularly happy

i can make a sequel doodle where they got the tent set up and are roasting marshmallows

heck yes
(hey ankoganit!)

4:42 AM
Hi @merrybot !

:)
see above doodle

Woah nice!

I have an FTC puzzle constructed. I think it's on the easier side for this genre, but oh well. After my standard obsessive checking of the solution's uniqueness and the solving path's sanctity, it should be released some time during my tomorrow.

nice :)

:D

4:45 AM
would you like me to time it so you can try it, or no?

Nah, release it when you can and i'll try and get a head start

It is a Tatamibari, so reasoning about rectangles & squares is required

it is a what now??
hm interesting

4
they got the tent set up

yay! now they have to not burn themselves
worth it to edit the MathJax out from here again?

4:56 AM
It's all right, they're clearly determined to have it

don't bother

5:15 AM
(waves)

5:49 AM
126 messages moved to [[grid-deduction] Puzzle Solving](chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/116768/…)

Good luck, @Sciborg. Did your dad get tested? Lots of things can cause fever. Like, you know, the common cold (though it's usually low fever if any).

oh whoever can pin chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/14524?m=56281996#56281996 (or solve it :P whichever comes first) that would be great (edited to add: thx)

@msh210 He's going to be tested tomorrow, so hopefully it is just flu - but it sounds like he has the classic covid symptoms with smell and breathing issues, so we are all prepping for it.

:(

it's definitely not how i expected my saturday night to go :(
the puzzling is distracting me
how are you doing over there?

6:06 AM
I may have only had a large cup of coffee for breakfast before heading out to base
In my defense, it's winter, which means I'm always highly caffeinated.

@Sciborg ugh, I'm sorry
@Mithical do you guys have ארוחת עשר on base? :-)

No, unfortunately

6:23 AM
0

I think I just thought of a new type of puzzle: Social Distancing Colors. Each of the colors in the rainbow represents at least how much one has to distance by: Red is 6m, Orange is 5m, Yellow is 4m, Green is 3m, Blue is 2m, Indigo is 1m, and Purple doesn’t need to distance. Each meter is a squar...

2 hours later…
8:03 AM
0

Can you find the next number in this baffling sequence? 925, 955, 1040, 1140, 1255, 225, 410, ?

0

After going to the depths of the ocean, you have finally reached it: the ultimate treasure of the world. However, when you go inside the sacred treasure room, you are presented with the Four Clams. They had an argument since one of them has angered Poseidon, the king of the sea. So, they decided ...

5 hours later…
12:37 PM
0

Here is a standard Yin-Yang puzzle. Rules of Yin-Yang: Fill each empty cell with either a black circle or a white circle. All white circles should be orthogonally connected, so do all black circles. There may not be any 2x2 cell region consisting of the same circle color.

1:31 PM
is it still valid to put an entry here? :0
(oh wait, not that-- that's the answer, not the question
this i mean)
15

Since November 2016, there has been a game ongoing in The Sphinx's Lair called Cryptic Clue Chat Chains. It involves one person thinking up a cryptic clue, such as might be found in a Cryptic Crossword, and everyone else trying to solve it. We have been maintaining an archive of these clues, but...

1 hour later…
2:42 PM
3

This is an entry for Fortnightly Topic Challenge #44: Introduce a new grid deduction genre to the community This is a Nurimisaki puzzle, an area-connection puzzle. Rules of Nurimisaki (taken from Nikoli): Shade each cell either white or black according to the rules below Cells with a circle re...

1 hour later…
3:59 PM
@msh210 Solution to your CCCC is HA + REM (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep).

hey bobble hey gareth
and gameN once again

night!

4:15 PM
@GarethMcCaughan yes, indeed

@oAlt I don't see why not
after sp3000's submission people sort of just stopped trying I guess

mm
(am coming back for a while)

4:51 PM
Oh no, formatting on mobile isn't so easy

fixed

thank you Avi >_<

no problem
pass it forward

:D
anddd I shall leave once again

5:36 PM
hey avi!
nvm, avi just left

hi, and bye
<3

ok then um
(@Sciborg, a Doodle Request: some mashup of a bobblecrown and a Deus heptagon)

I just woke up so I'll make breakfast first and then do doodles :P

that is a good idea
@Sciborg pretty good :)
you?

I will be helping to set up my family's fake Christmas tree later today.

5:41 PM
@merrybot Doing better than yesterday, my dad says his fever is still low-grade and he feels fine :) getting his test in afternoon so my brother and I are watching ourselves for symptoms until then.

@bobble same here, actually
@Sciborg that's good :)
meanwhile i am translating more ridiculousness

6:17 PM
@Deusovi, thoughts on a minor edit that did these four things?
- remove an incorrect pluralization
- add the apostrophe for "don't"
- replace a period with an exclamation point
Note that this is a user who has made other very minor edits as well

flag it if you're concerned and we'll handle it - i agree that the latter two are definitely unnecessary

I'm reviewing it at the moment
reject, then?

reject, yeah

it technically does improve the post because of the first two items

6:34 PM
Tatamibari out! @Sciborg

Ooh!
This is a really cool puzzle type

I find it interesting how puzzle types are like fads here. A puzzle type will catch on, run for a while, and then die down and be replaced by something new.
See: Word™, Imgur Mazes, Riley Riddles...

@Sciborg did you find the break-in yet? (there are a few places you could start, but I think only one lets you make decent progress)

Not yet but i'm thinking
Are you allowed to have a 1x1 square?

yep!

6:42 PM
ahhhh, i think i found the break-in

(completely unrelated) do you like the pattern of clues?

hmm, no, wait.... never mind i did not find the break-in
i have no idea what to do

I think you may have found one of the spots where you can make a deduction, but to make real progress you need information given by the true break-in

:(

neat puzzle!

6:44 PM
and Deus sniped you

of course

sorry, i happened to notice it as soon as it was posted
a bit easy, but i'm used to the type of argument that i think was intended

you actually found a break-in I didn't intend... your first part was intended to be part of the end of the puzzle :(
I made the puzzle too easy

yeah deductions like that first part pop out to me really easily, especially ones involving corners

roughly, my solution path was left -> bottom -> middle -> top -> right

6:49 PM
honestly tatamibari has always come off to me as a genre where it's very hard to prevent unintended break-ins

@sciborg doodle? or are you still breakfast-ing?

shikaku has similar problems in my experience - "divide into rectangles where each rectangle has one of the given symbols" is just a very restrictive ruleset on its own

I was considering throwing in some ? that would indicate a rectangle/square without giving dimensions, but I was having trouble making the puzzle with regular rulesets

i would be perfectly fine with that kind of variant

3

This is an entry for Fortnightly Topic Challenge #44: Introduce a new grid deduction genre to the community This is a Tatamibari puzzle, where you divide the grid into rectangles and squares. Rules taken from Wikipedia: Every partition must contain exactly one symbol in it. A + symbol must be c...

6:54 PM
good job, sphinx

i was about to say "consider: 3d tatamibari" as a joke but i honestly think that would be even easier than regular tatamibari

how so?

"all regions are cuboids" would be even more constraining for the final solution than "all regions are rectangles"

right, and then there's the problem of actually notating it

because in order to differentiate how things split you need a "fault line" where multiple shapes line up
yeah notation too

6:57 PM
I was also considering a variation where all regions are rectangles EXCEPT for one extra square and/or for one square moved to the outside, but it seemed too hard to make unique

hm, that sounds interesting
kinda reminds me of sashigane
oh huh there haven't been any sashigane posted on pse yet
well there you go if you wanna make a new one
there's an example sashigane

There's obviously no point in me even trying these, but i'll cheer on whoever solves it if you make it :p

that's not true D:

you are a smart baby bird

7:08 PM

1 hour later…
8:08 PM
@msh210 How about HAREM? Exultant shout = HA "Energetic activity at night! = REM Lots of women!" = HAREM

Ahh, that has to be it. Nice! :D

4 hours ago, by Gareth McCaughan
@msh210 Solution to your CCCC is HA + REM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep).

@GarethMcCaughan Ah, I didn't spot that one as I searched for the whole word, which obviously doesn't appear in this. Never mind.

8:36 PM
@Mithical Well, Riley hasn't really died, per se
Though rebuses were really popular for a while when I first joined

2 hours later…
10:17 PM
0

What logic is followed below to get the numbers for the months? MARCH = 3142 APRIL = 1232 MAY = 1121 JUNE = 1220 JULY = ?

11:07 PM
3

Nurikabe is a popular grid puzzle, usually played on a square grid. Here is my attempt to adapt it to a hexagonal grid. To solve it, you must shade cells in the grid such that these conditions are met: Like regular Nurikabe, each number indicates the size of a region of unshaded cells containing...

11:18 PM
Drat. I had quite a nice clue for the C4 but when I checked it turned out someone has clued the same word quite recently. In case anyone wants an extra clue while I think about a proper one: Stop playing lute CD (6)

11:33 PM
So I said before I was going to help put up the Christmas tree. Turns out that no one else had time, so I set up the entire tree and decorated it myself. Took me about 2 and a half hours.

CCCC: American conceptual artist eaten by fish (8)
@bobble You seem to have forgotten to post a picture of the tree.

My mom is currently paying me by making me hot chocolate. And any picture would probably have my or my sister's name if you zoomed in enough, since we have a bunch of personalized ornaments.

Ah, that would be problematic. I hope the hot chocolate is good.

11:50 PM
2
tree picture with (hopefully) all identifying information blurred out