The Sphinx's Lair

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Stiv

12:10 AM

Okay, so I managed to get it done before the weekend after all! :) (And now to sleep at last...)

Sphinx

Q: 28 Minutes Later

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #50: Escape Rooms I open my eyes to find myself lying in a bed in a white room. Sitting up is difficult, as a tangle of wires and tubes are attached to my arms and chest. I'm in hospital. But I have no idea why. How did I get here? I cannot remember. Last ...

Beastly Gerbil

Good timing :P

And it looks incredible, my only criticism would be that the time of positing appears to coincide with my bedtime...

Deusovi

12:23 AM

@Stiv having fun with it so far! three parts down...

Beastly Gerbil

Well I’m that case, maybe the timing is a good thing, as Deus will probably have posted a fully polished answer by the time I’ve solved the first part :P

Graylocke

@BeastlyGerbil another measurement in centideusovis is what I am aiming for ;p

2 hours later…

Sphinx

2:13 AM

Q: A Peculiar Find-A-Word

I was solving a crossword in my local newspaper when I came across a clue that made no sense: 19 Across: Be inappropriate On the face of it, there is nothing odd with this clue until I realised: 19 Across didnt exist! The only other puzzle on the page which could explain this printing error was ...

word wordplay word-search

2 hours later…

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

4:18 AM

I have some word ideas for the CC, just no wordplay for them :( They are COMPLAINT and COMMOTION

Deusovi

if you can't find even partial wordplay then it's probably not correct

3 hours later…

Sphinx

7:05 AM

Q: Calculation - the hard way

This is a puzzle I love to play with my math students and I hope you will enjoy it too: You are given the numbers 1,2,3,4 and 5 exactly once. Your target is a number, e.g. 36. Can you create a calculation with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and parantheses, s.t. you arrive at thi...

mathematics

Sid

@Stiv Fantastic puzzle. Jeez, that one would have taken a lot of time. Thanks for posting this.

As for the CCCC, I have been looking at king = K and kiss = O inside a word meaning trouble with the def being "Ring" but I have nothing.

(Ring probably means something in the sense of a group of people rather than the ornament)

Bubbler

Ring is also a mathematical concept

Jafe

7:47 AM

also to ring is to telephone

but why O = kiss? aren't Os hugs and Xs kisses?

1 hour later…

Stiv

9:08 AM

@BeastlyGerbil Ha, yeah it ended up so late because test-solving picked up two errors in sub-puzzles that needed fixing, and then I went over it SO SO CAREFULLY (AGAIN) to make sure I'd caught all the snags! It really did end up in perfect Deus timezone, didn't it...!

@Deusovi Really glad you enjoyed it (or at least the first three parts!) - it's been an idea in the back of my mind for a while, and having the FTC finally pushed me to do it.

@Sid Thanks, appreciate it :) Spotting the 'in' (the patient names) is the key to a quick solve here. Random stabbing at the grids can reveal some things, but spot the significance of the names and it's a big shortcut. Was a lot of fun (and time and effort...) to pull together, but it's an ambition realised to create one of these at last :)

Sphinx

9:31 AM

Q: Fair and square island hopping

If amateur fiction is not your thing skip to the bottom. As IP (Implausible Physics) expert for DREAM, the Department for Reckless Engineering and Advanced Megalomania you have been tasked by sheikh Shanzaar himself with ascertaining the safety of a new system of bridges joining for the first tim...

mathematics geometry graph-theory topology

2 hours later…

Sid

11:31 AM

@Jafe Are they? I always thought X = hugs and O = kiss

1 hour later…

Gareth McCaughan

12:40 PM

I definitely always thought of it the other way around. (Perhaps X=kiss because the sound of a (quick) kiss is a bit like that of the letter X, and O=hug both because X and O go together as do hugs and kisses, and also because an O is topologically like someone's arms forming a loop as they go around someone else.)

1 hour later…

Rand al'Thor

2:00 PM

The letter X also looks a bit like two faces meeting in a kiss.

Stiv

According to the Wiki page on 'Hugs and kisses' (attribute to this source as much deference as you wish), "The common custom of placing "X" on envelopes, notes and at the bottom of letters to mean kisses dates back to the Middle Ages, when a Christian cross was drawn on documents or letters to mean sincerity, faith, and honesty. A kiss was then placed upon the cross, by the signer as a display of their sworn oath."

Sphinx

2:26 PM

Q: The Green Periodic Puzzle

This puzzle follows from the Purple Periodic Puzzle (these puzzles are solved individually). Another strange periodic table has appeared and it's hiding a secret word. Can you find out what's strange about this green periodic table and find the answer?

word chemistry

2 hours later…

Sphinx

4:08 PM

Q: The Alan Parrish question

Two stereotypical british gentlemen that don't know each other engage in this unusual conversation (it's almost as if they were a setup for a puzzle): Gentleman A - Hello sir, I'll have you know that next month, I'll turn 49. Gentleman B - What a coincidence, next month is my birthday too, thoug...

knowledge story time

Sid

4:38 PM

@GarethMcCaughan ah. then that idea of OK inside a word meaning trouble goes out of the window.

I thought kiss = O simply because I can imagine someone's pouting face to resemble an "O"...

risky mysteries

With a small community, whenever I see a "user was removed" in my profile, I can see the same on many other random profiles.

Sphinx

5:25 PM

Q: How to solve this quiz question on monty hall problem?

I need help with this question Imagine that you're in a game show and your host shows you three doors. Behind one of them is a shiny car and behind the others are goats. You pick one of the doors and get what lies within. After making your choice, your host chooses to open one of the other two d...

logical-deduction monty-hall

Sphinx

5:51 PM

Q: Can anyone think of more examples of pair of words like “Mindful” and “Mind full”? Both sound same and have different/opposite meanings

I am looking for pair of words or using multiple words which sounds similar but have different/opposite meanings(like an example mentioned in the question above). I posted this question in English.Stackexchange and it was routed here

word wordplay english

Deusovi

6:05 PM

@Stiv definitely enjoyed the rest of it too!

Prince North Læraðr

Did that count as an imgur maze? If so, we can say Gareth was wrong :PPP

Lukas Rotter

negative

Sid

6:22 PM

anyone has any more ideas on the CCCC? Or can @GarethMcCaughan give us another hint?

Prince North Læraðr

Depends on what tense "in trouble" is

Deusovi

6:34 PM

no, that's not an imgur maze at all

Sphinx

7:08 PM

Q: I need some help with this 15x15 nonogram

I have been working on this nonogram for some time and can't seen to figure out what to do next...

ooh nonogram

Needs attribution :P

7:35 PM

I'll gladly give another hint. Any preferences as to whether you get a letter or some information about the clue works, and/or about what sort of info about how the clue works you'd like?

(likely AFK for a bit, though)

Prince North Læraðr

@GarethMcCaughan I would ask for what is the definition "or at least isn't, but that's kind of asking for a lot considering how short the CC is

Maybe another letter might be fair?

Sid

I put in some ideas today. Can you tell what percentage of the ideas are on the right lines(since there's wordplay + def, I assume each to be 50%. If half the wordplay is correct and def is correctly assumed, that would be 75%, etc)

Prince North Læraðr

Ring can be O btw

Rand al'Thor

8:08 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Not sure if there are any words containing "OBTW".

Prince North Læraðr

haha

1 hour later…

Sphinx

9:16 PM

Q: How to find the number of turns two tangent wheels have to make two fixed points meet?

The puzzle is as follows: We present you below this riddle. A certain mechanism opens a gate of a maximum security lab. It just happens that a glass lets you see the mechanism and you know the password to enter is related with the number of turns given by the small wheel. The condition is that ...

logical-deduction geometry

2 hours later…

Sphinx

10:58 PM

Q: I invited them and no one came

My colleague told me this morning with frustration: To 200 friends I sent invitations to my birthday party, and not one person came. The last paragraph of the invitation had a mysterious sentence which read, ″Renty grache sound tahar dolls″ . What did he meant by that?