The Sphinx's Lair

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Sphinx

02:17

Q: Decoding a mystery sequence of falling boulders

I'm trying to unravel the algorithm for an old 1980s game called Wanderer. The game is a simple grid: 16 cells high (all visible in the image) and 40 cells wide (though not all are depicted). In the game lots of things happen, but I'm only concerned with an sequence of falling boulders. They fal...

logical-deduction

2 hours later…

Prince North Læraðr

03:59

Okay hold on folks

What the genuine flipping flip is this shenanigan?

I thought I proposed in the meta post earlier specifically NOT to remove that line for mathematics, because this is an abused tag

Rand al'Thor

Bleh.

Prince North Læraðr

@riskymysteries @BeastlyGerbil?

Rand al'Thor

Someone went through a few weeks ago adding those "general X questions should be asked on X site instead" to a load of tag wikis, and now someone is going through removing them all.

Lots of work in the Suggested Edits review queue for no net gain at all.

Prince North Læraðr

That's fine, except don't get rid of it on the ONE TAG that actually needs it

A: Should 'off topic' directions appear in tag wiki excerpts?

TL;DR Tag wiki edits should reflect the bare minimum of what the tag is and when it should be used. Tag information about how not to use it should only be added as a preventive measure of a perpetual problem, or a meta update. As someone who has been writing tag excerpts for Literature SE since.....

I specifically called out mathematics to NOT have that line removed, because people actually misuse the mathematics tag

We don't need "general English questions should be asked on the English sites instead"

Because that's not a problem here

Also @Deusovi this edit has been rolled back

Ugh, I spent such a long time writing that meta proposal

@Randal'Thor Most of thought that the "general X questions...." were more harmful than helpful, but why did someone delete that line from the mathematics tag? Uggghhhh

Okay, well I shouldn't say "most of us"

Rand al'Thor

@PrinceNorthLæraðr What's wrong with the original title? Makes it a little more eyecatching on the HNQ list, and it's not saying anything offensive.

Prince North Læraðr

04:12

@Randal'Thor Idk, Deus felt it was provokative

Rand al'Thor

Surely we're allowed to mention bad things in puzzles, or use them as metaphors?

in The Reading Room, 13 hours ago, by Tsundoku

Yes, but ... shelving books by colour?? Isn't that like racism for books?

Prince North Læraðr

Idk, you can talk to Deus more about it. I just decided to mention it to him

Rand al'Thor

Sure, my comments weren't necessarily directed at you, more a general point of discussion :-)

Maybe it was already discussed in here, I haven't checked the transcript.

Prince North Læraðr

Personally, I think it's better with deus's edit. Sure, it's not exactly bad, but it's still unnecessarily provocative. Nothing wrong with deus's edit either

@Randal'Thor Also, wouldn't say Reading Room is the uh best exemplar of non-provocative speech, with the not-so-subtle political criticism that happens in there :P

Rand al'Thor

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Fair, but that's all one-sided: it's certainly not the kind of place that would be a hotbed of off-colour jokes about racism, quite the opposite.

Prince North Læraðr

04:25

Very true

It strikes me as many users in the reading room seem to have similar political viewpoints... at least no one's objected to Tsundoku's periodic updates :P

risky mysteries

@Randal'Thor Make that "someones".

@PrinceNorthLæraðr The info is already stated in the wiki body though.

@PrinceNorthLæraðr You did a good job on it, tbh.

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Sorry...

1 hour later…

Prince North Læraðr

05:39

@riskymysteries Nobody reads the wiki body tbh. An excerpt should reasonable cover everything about how to use this tag and if needed, how not to use the tag

No problem btw. Sorry for getting annoyed - it's not a big deal, I was just going through stuff during the time I saw that

1 hour later…

oAlt

07:01

darnit, my sudoku was broken from the very start ;_;

5 hours later…

Sphinx

11:40

Q: Words have value

"HELLO World" has value 12, while "Puzzles are great" has value 223. What is the value of "Puzzling StackExchange" ?

riddle word-property

Sphinx

12:31

Q: No three points in a line

You are given a 4x4 square grid. It has 16 cells and 25 grid intersections. Can you place 10 points at grid intersections, such that no three points lie on the same straight line? Lines can be oriented in any direction. Bonus question: can you find multiple solutions that are not rotations/mirror...

mathematics geometry combinatorics

risky mysteries

13:19

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Thanks!

Sphinx

13:48

Q: The glamorous couple and their cosplay equipment

Mike the MMA* fighter and his fashion-model wife make a striking couple. They turn heads, especially when engaging in their favourite pastime - cosplay**. Mike likes to dress as a fantasy hero, complete with sword and buckler while Wendy goes more for the delicate wood-elf look. Whenever they hav...

knowledge situation

1 hour later…

Puzzling Meta

14:55

Q: Best puzzles of 2020 Q4 (October - December)?

This question is part of the best-puzzle award series. What are your nominations for the best puzzles, here on Puzzling.SE, of the fourth quarter ( October / November / December) 2020? Suggested guidelines for nomination: Nominate each individual puzzle in a separate answer, so they can be up...

discussion best-of

Q: Is it acceptable to have politically-charged language in an otherwise apolitical puzzle?

Sometimes, creators of questions like to add colour to their puzzle, by adding some attempts to be "edgy" with their language. In most cases, I think we can all agree that its OK to spice up a question a little by making references to memes, pop culture, or running jokes. But what about political...

discussion moderation politics

Sphinx

15:30

Q: Fun with Letters, Words and Sentences?

I have a game, but first, I need to explain how it works. Take a sentence, completely meaningful. Suppose the sentence is, "Yes, yesterday we ate the meal sometime at night". In this sentence, if you take two consecutive words, you will find that both of those words contain a common letter. (For...

knowledge lateral-thinking optimization word-property

4 hours later…

Prince North Læraðr

19:05

@GarethMcCaughan Perhaps a hint?

(For the C4?)

Sphinx

19:22

Q: Playing tic-tac-tow in advance

Suppose that, instead of playing in your turn, you have to submit in advance, an ordered list of the 9 board positions. Then a computer plays for you by using, whenever it is your turn, the leftmost position that is still untaken. For example, suppose you are "X" and you play first. Then the comp...

game tic-tac-toe

2 hours later…

Sphinx

21:04

Q: Double Ducky (or Fu-two-shiki)

There are two discrete ways to solve this Futoshiki puzzle, each with its own unique solution. Here is a penpa-edit (without the letters entered in case you want to use numbers instead), and here is a transcription: [ ] [ ] [D] [ ] [ ] v v ^ [ ] [ ] [U]<[ ] [ ] ...

logical-deduction enigmatic-puzzle grid-deduction

msh210

21:43

@GarethMcCaughan I'm guessing this is wrong because it includes a definition by example (and a loose one, at that). But just in case… ash (wood) + era (stone, an example of an age) = Ashera (a goddess)

2 hours later…