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12:10 AM
boop :)
 
'borg!
 
Looks like you are planning on posting the LITS, yay!
 
do you want me to release it now?
I have the thing written up, just dithering on timing
 
Sure! I finished wrapping Christmas presents so i'm down
 
also why did I use the word "dithering"
I'm weird
 
12:12 AM
We're all weird
 
it's a perfectly fine word
 
no one has viewed the puzzle yet
I am crushed
crushed, I tell you
 
i have now
 
how dare i not have time travel powers
 
time to solve
 
12:18 AM
Are you trying to tell us something?
 
gonna stand back and let Deus immediately crush it, then i can try it
 
gonna have to recreate this in a sheet - the image is blurry :/
 
1
Q: Easy As LITS: Lots of "S"s

bobbleThis is an Easy as LITS puzzle (LITS variation), where you shade cells to form tetrominoes Rules taken from Grandmaster Puzzles: Shade exactly four connected cells in each outlined region, to form an L, I, T, or S tetromino. All shaded cells are connected with each other. No 2×2 group of cells c...

 
aww, I solved it on the image fine!
I can make it on a Google Sheet, hang on
 
the fill looks weird because of jpeg artifacts
nah i got it
 
12:19 AM
What's better, PNG or JPEG?
 
PNG
 
png
 
JPEG image compression leads to artifacting
 
jpeg is lossy compression; png is lossless
 
12:20 AM
... the images are PNGs
which you can see in the edit window
 
ah maybe not jpeg artifacts, my bad
 
I can try and put it into MS Paint and test, hang on
 
Yeah, I get those too
 
???
I blame imgur
 
12:22 AM
Something must have happened with the image size when you posted?
Maybe it got compressed somehow
 
If you clickthrough your should get the full-size image
that must be it
 
Ahh, that one is fine. There we go
 
I'm using the medium-size in the post because full-size was too big
 
ahhh ok
 
I bet the medium size option compressed it, the full size is fine.
Might be worth adding a quick note in the post
 
12:23 AM
yep that's much nicer
 
This puzzle type is wild, it's kinda "reverse ocean logic" where the tetro squares are the oceans that must touch...
 
And there's extra restrictions on what kind of touching is allowed
 
i have no idea what to do but am trying :p
 
Super-Duper Hint: There is a break-in somewhere
 
massive hint, ruined the whole puzzle /s
 
12:26 AM
Anyone down for Codenames?
 
oh! i was just listing all 2⁸¹ possible shadings and then checking if each one fit the conditions. that makes so much more sense
 
Deus is a supercomputer confirmed????
 
I thought he was a wizard?
 
i think i might see a break-in but am struggling with the ruleset a bit
 
Is this one of those situations where they downloaded a genius's mind into a computer?
 
12:28 AM
^
I think so
 
You've cracked the code
 
WE'RE ONTO YOU, DEUS
 
so all the tetros must connect?
 
all of them
 
i'm so confused
 
12:30 AM
how is that confusing?
it's a fairly straightforward rule
 
i mean in the sense that this goes against all the grid logic i've learned up to this point :p
 
you could practice on the puzzle linked in the question, I think that one's easier? I'm not good at rating the difficulty of my own puzzles though
 
no, it's okay, i'm slowly getting it now
i found a tentative break-in and placed two tetros
 
@Sciborg it might help to think of this as a Nurikabe/Tapa wall
that happens to be made up of tetrominoes
 
ahh, that helps.
it's like i'm placing the oceans rather than the islands
fun puzzle :)
 
12:35 AM
Pffft Deus already solved it
 
Yeah, figured it would be in the next 30 seconds or so
 
@bobble that was a nice puzzle! most of it was pretty simple after the break-in, but i liked the break-in -- definitely a nice change of pace from the usual LITS puzzles i see
 
one of your pictures is broken
the one in the spoiler about the break-in
 
yep, i just noticed and fixed
 
also your text there has a typo
you rule out the center, and then place it in the center apparently
 
12:38 AM
...whoops, yes
switched between referring to regions with absolute position, and position within the part i was looking at
 
0
Q: Continue the numeric sequence

SteveCan you continue this sequence? If you can get the next few numbers in the sequence, you can just about as easily double the length of the sequence: 3 3 5 4 4 3 5 5 4 3 6 6 8 8 7 7 9 8 8 6 9 ... Please, if you've come across this one before, consider not posting a spoiler right away.

 
 
3 hours later…
3:37 AM
@Sciborg, you're first on the page ranking rep-earned-this-week for Arqade
 
3:47 AM
Really? Dang - that Adobe question really took off
I've been hoping to become more active in GameDev since my dev projects have been shaping up really well, but that site is basically entirely Unity questions now and that's my least favorite platform
 
you could try ignoring [unity]
poof, now the site has no Unity questions
 
I have the tag ignored, and it literally leaves about 2 questions per page
 
ask questions?
 
well, yes, but i like to answer them too :(
 
could we decamp to the Grove for tic ranting?
 
3:52 AM
sure, one sec
 
 
2 hours later…
5:47 AM
3
Q: A Question for the AGES

ExalTo properly complete this image, what color should the central S be?

0
Q: A Town of Horror

AnonymousThere was a town, full of people. But that town was not very simple. Only 15 people, and they march outside. Day goes and night comes, and they go inside. Each day you vote, and you go on trial. If you are wrong, you get hanged, which ends your survival. If you are virtuous to others, you sho...

 
6:37 AM
Useless CCCC hint: The answer is seven letters long.
Actual CCCC hint: The last letter is M.
 
7:31 AM
@oAlt FIREARM - FILM (videotape) with REAR (behind) replacing the L (L ibyan)
 
7:45 AM
ah, nice
 
@Stiv it's your turn :0
 
making a crossword for the future "tales from the cryptic" ftc which will be the booomb (imo)
 
Epic
 
0
Q: What are the fruits?

Beechwood ReviewThere are two fruits, each with 6 letters in the name. Both fruits use letters exclusively from a set of 7 letters. ⁃The name of one of the fruits uses 6 out of the 7 letters, using each of the 6 letters distinctly once. ⁃The name of the other fruit uses only 3 of the 7 letters (but repeats most ...

 
8:01 AM
looking forward to it! it's looking like that might be about the time my recent project will be releaseable too, which is perfect
 
ooh
 
8:43 AM
0
Q: What are these two common structures that use a set of 6 letters?

Beechwood ReviewFind the two words. These words refer to 2 common structures you might find on a property. Structure 1 uses 4 out of the 6 letters, using each of those 4 letters distinctly once. Structure 2 also uses 4 out of the 6 letters, but repeats half of those letters exactly once. hint:

 
9:34 AM
congratulations on 100k, @GarethMcCaughan!
 
 
1 hour later…
10:49 AM
ooh congrats
 
 
1 hour later…
11:50 AM
Congratulations @GarethMcCaughan, well deserved.
 
 
2 hours later…
2:05 PM
oh, cool, I'm on 100003. Now I need to go and downvote three things.
 
Congrats @Gareth! Welcome to the club :-)
And there won't be any more 100k users for a loooong time.
Such a big gap below the top 4.
 
CCCC: Policing Norway holds back crime (5)
(and further congrats to Gareth!)
 
2:45 PM
@Stiv _wron g_<
 
@jafe Right!
 
CCCC: In run-down toolshed, maybe Geralt and Oscar making a sneaky exchange (3,3,10)
 
I started writing a meta question about IQ-test-type questions. (There are a couple already, one quite recent, both of the form "should we forbid X?", but it seems like there are a few different plausible options for X and I thought it might be worth seeing if there's consensus on which option is best.) And then an alternative approach occurred to me. We have a policy forbidding questions from ongoing contests of finite duration. That last "finite duration" condition is copied from ...
... the Mathematics SE site, but I wonder whether on PSE we would be better off without it. What if we just amend our policy on that point to: no questions from still-running competitive things of any kind? If you post a question from some competitive thing, hte onus is on you to show that it's no longer active.
Upside: nice simple change, would immediately rule out things like the Algebrica test and online IQ tests.
But it might not be enough, because maybe someone could argue that those online IQ tests aren't contests or competitions but we still don't want those questions here.
While I'm on the subject, the other options I think we have are (0) leave things as they are, (1) forbid all IQ-test-type puzzles, (2) forbid all IQ-test-type puzzles not created by the person posting them, (3) forbid all questions from IQ tests. My least favourite thing about all of (1-3) is that they're ambiguous: what counts as an IQ-test-type puzzle, or an IQ test?
3
My feeling is that 3 is the least ambiguous one, but others might disagree.
In any case, I think our policy should also say explicitly that the burden of proof is on the person posting.
 
@Randal'Thor @jafe pressure no pressure
 
less than 200 max-rep days left! :P
 
Sid
2:59 PM
Congrats @GarethMcCaughan. Well deserved. Still waiting for that first question though. :P
 
2
Q: Explain this bad parking job

FlanManOne bright Monday morning, I drove to work and parked my car in Lot A. That morning, others also parked in Lot A, and we all found each other’s parking jobs to be satisfactory. That afternoon, a co-worker, who was a nervous driver, and who was my neighbor at home, asked me to ride with her to pro...

-1
Q: Relationship between surface area and volume of cuboid

Culver Kwan Piper’s boyfriend Rico proposed to her, so Piper asked her a Math question, and if Rico can answer it correctly, Piper will accept the proposal. Piper said, “I bought a cuboid with volume 8 yesterday at the store. When the length, width, height of the cuboid are increased by 1 to form a new cubo...

 
@GarethMcCaughan (to address the questions, 1) to be honest I don't really care about IQ test questions, but 2) I do agree that Puzzling should have a policy banning questions that come from ongoing competitive things.)
 
don't many of the IQ test questions fall foul just by the user not having permission to release them under a free license?
 
@jafe: THE OLD SWITCHEROO = TOOLSHED* around [WITCHER (Geralt) + O (Oscar)]
 
@oAlt We already have a policy banning questions that come from ongoing competitive things, but it explicitly permits them if the ongoing competitive thing has no defined endpoint. So e.g. the "Algebrica" IQ test, which I believe is used by some high-IQ societies as an admission criterion, doesn't fall under that description. (There are other reasons why questions from it aren't permitted here.)
@jafe Yes, many do, but it's not immediately obvious which and we would rather not have to keep a long list or go chasing the makers of the questions to find out what they permit.
 
3:10 PM
Ah, my bad
 
I guess that, again, one possibility would be to say that when there is any doubt the onus is on the poster to give us evidence that they're allowed to post.
 
Yeah; I think it would boil down to that, and would address jafe's question
 
@bobble Know it's early for you, but I think the next CCCC is me...mind if I name check you?
 
3:30 PM
@JeremyDover that's right
 
4:16 PM
@JeremyDover sorry, I slept in! that's fine by me
(In general, I'm fine with my username being used in chat for stuff, but please ask before making a main/meta post with it)
 
 
1 hour later…
5:30 PM
@GarethMcCaughan agreed with this.
 
5:55 PM
Thanks bobble! This will be not hard, but topical :-)
CCCC: Logic puzzle LITS constructed, Bobble left medium of communication (11)
 
I just noticed that my FTC puzzle is higher-voted than its inspiration.
I was hoping the link would channel some votes Stiv's way
 
 
1 hour later…
7:00 PM
agh copied too much
> Yes π! Yes π! No τ! No τ!
In this clue I am saying the sub-answer right away: It is the 3141th digit (Digits counted after the point) of π!
You can bing it, calculate it, or even python it. If you use python, you can use my module math-pi at pypi(I'm making Advertisement).
should the self-admitted "Advertisement" be edited out? @Deusovi
(unrelated: that doesn't seem very puzzl-y)
 
@GarethMcCaughan I'm in favor of (2) -- I think it's actually less ambiguous than (3). It's easier to tell when something is IQ-test-type and not from the person posting than it is to tell whether it's specifically from an IQ test.
 
hmm, I agree with you there
 
"IQ-test-type" can be more precisely defined -- there are only a few categories that these generally fit into, and they're all pretty similar.
 
-3
Q: A Treasure(Number) Hunt

mathTadaa! Here comes Mathematics again! Here I am giving you some clues and some sentences. The answer is the Sum of the sub-answers of all three clues. All the sub-answers are numbers. Hint 1 READ EVERTHING CAREFULLY Clue 1 Of course the last one was not a clue. Didn't you read the second sentence?...

 
7:23 PM
okay so it's deleted and that doesn't matter anymore
 
yeah, figured it wasn't important because it would shortly be deleted or downvoted a lot
 
I think the C4 must have definition part "Logic" or "Logic puzzle", else it'd say "LITS logic puzzle…".
 
can "constructed" be an indicator?
 
it seems like a plausible anagram indicator
 
maybe an anagram of LITS, plus a word for "bobble" reversed, plus a "medium of communication"?
 
7:34 PM
Reversed, or removed from the medium of communication.
Actually, I take back my "else…": it could instead be a short logic puzzle + LITS* ± a word for bobble (possibly reversed) = a medium of communication.
Or the definition could be "of communication" and "medium" could just be M.
 
0
Q: My prefix is a german no

math My prefix is a german no, My suffix is the age last years, My infix is the cage of a hunter, My whole is coming once again in a few weeks.

 
 
1 hour later…
8:52 PM
@jafe That reminds me a lot of the "old saw" clue
I wonder what goes through the minds of trolls
Like people who just make random, obnoxious posts around here
Or say intentionally inflammatory things
I don't understand what the pleasure they derive from doing that is
 
0
Q: Do these rational sequences always reach an integer?

Sebastien PalcouxThis problem was already posted with much more details on MathOverflow (there), but it can be stated so shortly and easily, and it is so puzzling, that it definitely deserves to be posted here too. Let $u_0 \ge 2$ be a rational number, and $u_{n+1} = \lfloor u_n \rfloor(u_n - \lfloor u_n \rfloo...

-1
Q: How it encrypted?

JeniaI've recently registered on this site, so I would like to try posting a riddle. A simple one, with no story. Can you crack this? I just encrypted the message TG92ZXIgSjVMR0s0UkFLSkxUSzIzQ0k1TEhVWTNYSFU2UT09PT0= Target of this crack is to get 1 word. You need to know some bases if you want to de...

 
@JeremyDover I think this is SLITHERLINK (Logic puzzle) = LITS* + HER (Bobble) + L (left) + INK (medium of communication)
 
@Stiv nailed it!
 
Nice! Cool solve with a cool clue
 
9:30 PM
Ooh, I missed that C4 but that's a really creative one! :D
 
there's Codenames going on
 
Ah yes Sciborg I need you like RIGHT NOW
 
also North might have to leave soon and that would give me no guesser
 
I'm not sure I have a ton of time, but i can try
 
There's two word left
 
9:32 PM
should end soon
 
9:45 PM
0
Q: Do you want to travel to the island?

JeniaDo you want to travel in 16 years to top 7 island in USA? <3. Cost for the ticket to the island(in 16 y.o.) - 953$. For sure: ...and:

0
Q: Advantage, Black!

Daniel CausebrookIn chess, the white player makes the first move.It is generally understood that this gives white a minor advantage, with a win rate of 52-56%. In this initial position, white actually has checkmate in one move!      However, the player who makes the first move doesn't necessarily have the advanta...

 
 
1 hour later…
11:04 PM
okay I just spent so long replacing the images here with tables, and the edit didn't submit and I'm banned from editing. (which is weird, since I don't have a meta account)
very annoyed
also I didn't save it anywhere, so all that work is gone
 
11:33 PM
CCCC: In Los Angeles, for example, Middle English is allowed (5)
 
@Stiv: LEGAL =In LA, EG + engLish
 
@JeremyDover Right back at ya! :) (Yes, that's correct...)
 
Nice one, friend! Now it's my turn again :-(
 
I don't generally make many cryptics (this puzzle is my only cryptic crossword to date) but I'm enjoying having a little bash at the CCCC every now and then at the moment - it's nice to have something like this where people can chip in when the mood catches them (and when they can actually work it out!).
 
The thing I love about cryptics is that when they're good, you get that same satisfaction like when a jigsaw puzzle piece clicks into place. I think I've written one of these (ever)...but I keep trying :-)
CCCC: Subject partner to chatter about law eliminating Tesla (9)
 

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