The Sphinx's Lair

12:01 AM

@LukasRotter What answer were you thinking of? I wasn't trying to build in a deliberate red herring this time, although in the title I mentioned as an afterthought a couple of things you might think it is.

Lukas Rotter

I have a slight "fear" that it might still be correct and I'm missing something so I'll rot13 it just for safety: Yvoenel

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor r.e. your riddle, is the borrower and lender in the title the wrong way round?

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil No, but the title is (like the original Hamlet quote) not a description but an instruction: it's you who should be a borrower but not a lender, rather than the thing being described.

Beastly Gerbil

Ahhhh I see, I was taking the subject as the thing being described, didn't realise it was a quote :)

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter You were right, which means the riddle was too easy :-( Which line did you think doesn't fit?

Beastly Gerbil

12:10 AM

I don't know about others but the first thing I saw when I see 'borrow' is the answer

Probably because I am not old enough to borrow from a bank so :P

Lukas Rotter

I didn't think X would actually give you money if you give them Y. I thought they just accepted pure donations because their main Ys are from vendors anyway.

Rand al'Thor

I'm not entirely sure how much of the way these things work is country-specific. That might explain why @Beastly was the one to answer, coming from the same country as me.

@BeastlyGerbil Yeah, I was just going to say that :-D

Beastly Gerbil

(Also updated to tables)

Yeah, the only thing I've ever borrowed from is that so :P

Although I've never heard them of them paying for donations as such?

Rand al'Thor

I thought they do?

Maybe I got mixed up with the occasional book sales, where you could pay like 50p or £1 and get an old second-hand book to keep.

Sphinx

2

Q: A borrower but not a lender be, I'm not a bank or university

From me you can borrow, but only for a while. You've got to give it back or you'll pay a debt. I won't borrow from you, that's not my style. But you can give to me and some money you'll get. I'm always found in academic places, But public versions can also be found. My stuff is stored in sort of ...

riddle

Beastly Gerbil

12:26 AM

I’m pretty sure book shops do, but I’m almost positive that (public ones at the very least) definitely don’t

They pay the authors with royalties, but any book donated is unpaid for

Graylocke

12:43 AM

@LukasRotter This is actually what I was going for

Which part of that is the most unfair as a definition? (feedback pls?) I think all those definitions are replaceable in sentences..?

Lukas Rotter

For my part I'd never have come up with score/cut without desperately searching for it after having the deadline/cutoff idea. Off seems like kind of a loose synonym for below standard. Keep in mind that I'm not a native english speaker and my judgement could be completely wrong here, so you'd get better feedback from someone else. I don't think there's any problem with the structure of the clue itself.

Deusovi

"score" = CUT seems mostly okay by me, though a bit loose

Graylocke

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica The bit I was saying was unfair was my initial post containing "but" which I replaced... I am not sure which part of the revised clue is actually unfair (and not just difficult... apparently)... hence me asking :)

Deusovi

"subpar" = OFF seems to not really be a synonym

they're related, but not really the same thing

Graylocke

His performance had been off lately?

I think the example in M-W was worse though (The milk tasted off.. which I don't think anyone would replace with substandard)

Deusovi

12:56 AM

hm, maybe? i feel like "off" has connotations more of "different / unusual [in a way that's discomforting]"

Graylocke

Maybe my lesson is to not use M-W as my checker ;p

Deusovi

"off" in that sense doesn't seem to me to be about any particular standard other than 'normality'

Graylocke

mmm standard as in usual rather than level of quality...

Deusovi

right

Graylocke

... but you wouldn't use "off" to mean "higher than usual" would you?

Deusovi

12:59 AM

no - it does definitely have negative connotations, but the negativity isn't really the 'point' of it

at least, to me

Graylocke

Yeah fair enough. I was already feeling like if the combined minds here hadn't worked it out, then there was something off about the clue.

Deusovi

(hehe)

Graylocke

But I honestly didn't think it was as difficult as it turned out to be... humble apologies.

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor if you’re still here I have a slightly odd request, if not though, no problem!

Graylocke

@LukasRotter I have seen cut | score a lot though... which is possibly from my "liberal" Australian crossword sources.. :/ Sorry

Deusovi

1:01 AM

i think that's fine

"I made a [score/cut/notch] in the log." are all equivalent to me - absolutely zero issue there imo

Graylocke

I was more worried about the overall definition than "off", which I found surprising. Because when I got worried (that I had broken C4) and got advice, I got the same response that cutoff was fine and off was off.

It might be minor differences in usage of the words between US | UK | AU :/

Deusovi

yeah, i have no issue with either CUTOFF = "final moment", or CUT = "score". it's just OFF that seems weird to me

Graylocke

Anyway, thanks for feedback :) I will improve!

Beastly Gerbil

There’s no way you can earn 5 rep nowadays is there?

For context I’m 15 rep away from 44’444 :P

bobble

Get an OP to accept your answer and then downvote you

oh wait that's only -2

well then get an accept and 5 downvotes

Beastly Gerbil

1:09 AM

I was going to ask rand if he could temporarily accept my answer just until I grab a SS but I think they’re probably asleep based on time zones

I’m on 44429, so need 15 exactly

Oh well it’s no biggie if it doesn’t happen but always a bit of fun :)

bobble

un-downvote 15 answers?

a chance to go check to see if any of them have been improved

Beastly Gerbil

I doubt I’ve downvoted enough answers recently enough for my vote not to be locked :P

bobble

it unlocks after an edit

Beastly Gerbil

Yeah, maybe a 2/3 but 15 would be a big stretch

Also impossible to check on mobile (AFAIK)

bobble

puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/18250/…

that link should show you all your downvotes

Beastly Gerbil

1:17 AM

Checked and there’s def no chance of finding 15 rep from there :P it’s ok it’s just a fun milestone, I’m not too worried about it

Jeremy Dover

Web developer is your friend, Beastly Gerbil!

Beastly Gerbil

Ahaha, might have to ‘Inspect Element’ a Screenshot tomorrrow :P

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

2:03 AM

Lukas takes the C4! Who knew

Sphinx

2:29 AM

0

Q: Dividing the first 10 primes into groups whose sum is prime

Take the first 10 primes. Can you divide them into $g$ disjoint groups, such that the sum of numbers in each group is prime. In particular can you make this work for every value of $g$ in the range $[2,10]$ ?

mathematics combinatorics primes

Sphinx

4:38 AM

0

Q: Dividing the first 96 primes into groups whose sum is prime

Is it possible to divide the first $96$ primes into $𝑔$ disjoint groups, such that the sum of numbers in each group is prime, for all $1 \leq g \leq 96$ ? You will probably need a computer for this. I realize this is a lot of computations, so I will be happy to see just a few examples of $g$ whe...

mathematics combinatorics primes

Rand al'Thor

6:02 AM

@BeastlyGerbil Sorry, I was asleep, and now you're 25 rep over at 44469.

Maybe I can find an answer of yours to temporarily unaccept and unupvote? ;-)

Sphinx

8:55 AM

0

Q: What do these words have in common. Season 12 episode 254

There you go with some chosen words from a large group: angel bat cling dog glass hatchet ice king knife lamp lancet lion lung noodle oil parrot pin pipe rainbow rock sand sun surgeon tile trigger turkey velvet viper Can you guess what do they have in common?

knowledge wordplay

Lukas Rotter

9:45 AM

CCCC: Candy-coated copper inside morning market (4, 4)

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

@LukasRotter RAIN DROP Copper symbolises Radium, which is RA on the periodic table. IN is obvious, inside. Morning market stocks have benn DROPping since 2020.

Of course, Candy coated is the def, which references the song.

It all seems to fit

Seen 4 s ago Is it right @LukasRotter?

Lukas Rotter

Nope, I don't think "morning market" would be valid for DROP, it would have to be "morning market's behavior" or something like that for it to work. I was searching for the song you were referencing, and "Candy coated rain drop" has 47 views on YT so that would be evil

Oh ok now I know which song you mean. Still no

I also honestly don't understand how copper=radium. Copper would just be CU?

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

10:10 AM

I hate being a cc noob

Gareth McCaughan

11:44 AM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica Head over to theguardian.com (UK newspaper) and find their crosswords. Pick an oldish one from a Monday (they tend to get harder over the course of a week). Spend at least a few minutes thinking about each clue. You may well not solve any; that's OK. Maybe note down what ideas you had. Then go to fifteensquared.net and search it for the crossword you looked at (use the crossword number); you should find a solution with explanations of all the clues. [...]

... Go through those, taking note of any indicator-words, ideas, etc., that you weren't familiar with before. Wait a day or so to let things settle in your brain. Repeat. I'm not certain that fifteensquared does literally every Guardian crossword, so you might want to search it before attempting one -- but then you will be more tempted to cheat :-).

There are books about how to solve crosswords; the ones I have on my shelf, both of which I think are pretty good, are the "Chambers Crossword Manual" and "How to Solve the Times Crossword". Working through one of those would teach you a lot.

The Chambers Crossword Manual is still in print, price ~£12 in hardback. HTSTTCC looks like it might not be. But there are quite a number of other similar books. I haven't read them and can't comment on whether they're any good, but probably some of them are.

Of course, here I'm assuming that "hate" actually means what it says. If you meant "mildly dislike, but not enough to put in a few hours' work and a couple of hours' minimum wage worth of money" then it's probably not worth doing any of that :-).

There are other useful online resources. E.g., the Guardian newspaper I mentioned above has a crossword blog, with an occasional series on "cryptic crosswords for beginners". Archive here: theguardian.com/crosswords/series/…

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

12:03 PM

@GarethMcCaughan Thanks

I usually open Alex Bellos's Monday Puzzle in The Guardian, never knew they had cc guides

Sphinx

2:04 PM

0

Q: Swimming lessons

In eleven clues, contrary to normal cryptic clue rules, the definition part has been placed somewhere in the middle. It divides the wordplay into two separately solvable parts, indicating a place where the answer can be altered to form another, thematic word. These alterations are not written in...

cryptic-crosswords

Sphinx

4:13 PM

0

Q: Insert the missing character question in which pattern has to be completed either row wise or column wise

Pls someone help me solve this insert the missing character. I am not getting any clue how to solve this question so pls someone help

calculation-puzzle missing-digits

user586228

Modern warfare has changed from large scale clashes of armies to suppression of civilian populations. Chemical agents that do their work silently appear to be suited to such warfare; and regretfully, there exist people in military establishments who think that chemical agents are useful tools for their cause.

Which of the following statements best sums up the meaning of the above passage:
(A) Modern warfare has resulted in civil strife.
(B) Chemical agents are useful in modern warfare.
(C) Use of chemical agents in warfare would be undesirable

How to crack such questions what should be study technique

?

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