The Sphinx's Lair

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Bubbler

00:00

I don't see it as blatantly NAA at least, since it tries to answer the given problem under a possible interpretation of it (albeit the interpretation is likely wrong)

bobble

00:28

> To further explain the color layout of the cube is in such a way that the final four corners can not be solved, much like if you try to do a pattern by selling each faces bordering colors like making yellow have a white border and white with a yellow when they are opposite

> and doing that for every face you can not actually solve because when the try the last algorithm either 2 or none of the corners will be correct and while using the traditional algorithm you need to get only one corner in the correct place because it rotates the other three so with two in the correct spot you can never have all four go to the correct spot.

this sentence is so long it doesn't fit into a single chat message!

I also have no idea what it's saying.

3 hours later…

Sphinx

03:21

Q: With 4 I deliver, with 3 I trouble, with 2 I kill

I'm a four letter word: With four I deliver people. With three I trouble people. With two I kill people. What word am I?

Sphinx

04:11

Q: What is the next diagram, and what is the number?

I needed some help to a friend of mine, he was solving a puzzle. He sent me a remake of what he was solving, and its up to you to help my friend!

mathematics cipher sequence

Jafe

@Deusovi wow, that's really nice to hear! thanks a lot!

2 hours later…

Lukas Rotter

06:45

If the current FTC will turn out to be as quiet (< 3 entries) as the last one, we might consider setting FTCs on hold.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

07:01

@LukasRotter We should have FTC reboots each year

Stiv

07:26

@LukasRotter I was just thinking something similar and came here to ping you on that exact subject! Last fortnight there weren't even enough entries for the bot to trigger the stats. I would say we need to be getting at least 5 entries a fortnight for this to be a viable event and agree with your suggestion of curtailing the reboot if this fortnight is another quiet one.

2 hours later…

Sphinx

09:40

Q: Africa just kept coming up

No tricks this time, what you see is what you get. The "around" answers are simply written in the coloured cells clockwise. Across 1. City on the British Isles, excluding the island on which Douglas is located (7) 5. Following utilisations; extremely exhausted; employed (4) 9. Provided with evid...

knowledge geography cryptic-crosswords

Sphinx

10:31

Q: Flashlight and 8 batteries

A flashlight requires 2 AA-type batteries to operate. Both these batteries need to be charged for the flashlight to work. We happen to have 8 batteries, but 4 of them are charged while the other 4 are discharged/unusable, and they look all the same. So we would have to test them two at a time i...

logical-deduction

3 hours later…

Sphinx

13:02

-1

Q: Blindly choosing a ball from a bag

You are blindfolded. You are handed a bag and told that there are three balls and two cubes, all of which are the same size and are equally likely to be chosen. You blindly choose one of the items from the bag. What is the probability that you choose a ball?

lateral-thinking probability

1 hour later…

Gareth McCaughan

14:26

^ This question has been closed as "mathematics problem, not puzzle". I'm not sure it's a good question, but surely that isn't what's wrong with it? It's more a joke masquerading as a mathematics problem. (Unless I am entirely misunderstanding its point.)

msh210

There's sort of a catch-22 when it comes to C4 hints. If no one posts ideas, or if only one or two people do, then I don't know anyone (else) has been thinking about it, and I figure "no point in a further hint if they haven't even thought about it since the last one". If someone does post even halfway-good ideas, then that gives others something to chew over, and I (cont'd)

figure "no point in a further hint while they have that one". So the only time I should post a hint is if there's been discussion that's been completely on the wrong tack.

@GarethMcCaughan If the intended answer is 60%, then the closure reason is correct. If the intended answer is "1 or 0, depends what happened", then the OP means to catch us up with epistemologics, and is being annoying, and the question should probably be closed, though I don't know the closure reason. The fact that we have to have this conversation, guessing at the intended answer, probably means it should be closed as unclear.

Stiv

@GarethMcCaughan I think it was difficult to select a precise close reason from the given list. Taken at face value, it is a VERY simple maths problem; with the lateral-thinking tag it is actually more of an unsatisfying it-wasn't-seagull-after-all affair... Overall, it's definitely not a puzzle, and I think the other reviewers and myself found it hard to choose a reason consistently between us - I was last to the party and there had already been 3 different options ticked on the reasons list!

msh210

@Stiv seagull?

Stiv

The old "A man walks into a restaurant and orders a seagull sandwich, takes one bite, walks out of the restaurant and kills himself - why?" riddle...

msh210

@Stiv Not familiar. I can Google it

Stiv

14:36

Q: The old man doesn't like seagull meat

An old man and his mute niece always wanted to visit some beautiful tropical island. "Before my sight leaves me, I want to see how a real palm looks like!", said the old man. He was lying. His sight had already left him, and he could still see silhouettes and shadows, but communication in sign ...

story situation

No need - we have it here already!

msh210

Thanks.

Oh, and I've even seen it before (it has my downvote).

samm82

@Stiv Although in all fairness to the original, it was originally a lateral thinking puzzle that started with the short bit @Stiv quoted and required the solver to ask questions to ascertain more information, but obviously that doesn't fit the format of PSE

Stiv

Ha! (I mentioned it mainly as an example of a frustrating lateral-thinking puzzle...)

And @samm82 - indeed, the way I was taught that one was as a one-liner, and I was then expected to ask questions for 45 minutes until I had finally worked out the whole convoluted plot... So I have bad memories of seagull meat for different reasons to the old man in the riddle!

samm82

Yikes XD - I agree that this specific riddle did a less-than-ideal job of translating the interactive-ness of the original to work for the site

Sphinx

Q: Wednesday's Bee Donimoes Problem

A swarm of dice bring nectar back to the hive from a domino garden. I just finished adding a new puzzle race game to Donimoes, my collection of domino puzzles and games, so I thought I would post a few bonus problems here. The game is Bee Donimoes, and the bees are dice flying back to the queen b...

dominoes

Q: Two football teams

Twenty two football players have agreed to split every week into two teams and play a match against each other. Every week, teams will be chosen differently, 11 players in each team, and they will play until each of the (231) possible pairs, A and B, of players among the 22 players will have play...

mathematics combinatorics

4 hours later…

Avi

19:03

Raising skirts on impulse finally leads to workplace problems (7) - rot13(FGEVX(_R)F<)

wondering if valid

msh210

19:39

@Avi Not so sure about using "on" that way. Otherwise it's fine afaict.

Avi

19:55

another one bites the dust

Prince North Læraðr

Avi! Long time no see!

Avi

20:07

hello

kind of busy programming at the moment, but I just noticed that wordplay (somehow) after reading puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/108015/…

Sphinx

20:38

Q: Reveal my friend's reacton

I recently messaged a video to my friend. It was one of those random, funny YouTube kinds. However, when I asked what their thoughts were, they sent me a cryptic text back. "Osium, Sodium, Polonium, Tungsten, Oxygen, Rhenium, Hyrdogen." I quickly figured it out. What was their reaction?