The Sphinx's Lair

12:38 AM

0

Q: Message passed between friends in a library

Mary met her friend Jenny in the library. They gossiped about various things and then each chose a book and went to separate corners of the library and sat down to read. After half an hour Jenny went to Mary to say goodbye and gave her an encrypted message, the one shown below. 217622-13613362625...

cipher

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

1:56 AM

@LukasRotter I don't get it

One more HNQ CC: Recreating old handwriting into a font? (Graphics Design SE)

Sphinx

3:28 AM

0

Q: Deriving a 3x3 grid from another one

A $3 \times 3$ grid $G$ is filled with every number from $1$ to $9$. Now a new grid $H$ is formed, such that $H_{ij}$ is the number of neighbors of $G_{ij}$ that are greater than $G_{ij}$. Two cells are neighbors if they are adjacent horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Given the grid $H$ show...

logical-deduction combinatorics no-computers

Sphinx

4:40 AM

0

Q: Rare but Abundant in Hill and Hole

I am uncommon, But a worthy goal. Rare but abundant In hill and hole. Who am I? You may already know the answer, so the task is not to answer the riddle per se, but to solve the following 'What is a Word' puzzle, use the words in the puzzle to find another four word phrase (2 from each side), a...

riddle word pattern word-property

HTM

5:23 AM

Back with two CCs inspired by HNQs (one of them can almost be used as is, but wouldn't be exactly correct):

5

Q: Stuck pedal, I've tried everything

I'm looking for suggestions, when basically everything has failed to remove a pedal. It's a pretty new bike (Trek 520). The drive side pedal came off fine, the non-drive side did not. I am aware that it has left-hand threads. I initially used a 15mm pedal wrench, and tried with an allen key on th...

maintenance crankset replacement bolt

Stuck pedal, say: "I've tried everything"? (5)

12

Q: COVID-19 mutation nomenclature

Consider: Source: Where Do COVID Vaccines Stand Against the Variants? The nomenclature seems to follow a hierarchical pattern. What does the first letter and the subsequent numbers indicate? Location of the mutation?

covid-19

Model MERS mutation nomenclature (5)

BTW lots of interesting ideas for the C4 up there, won't confirm any suspicions though (until the next hint, that is)

@Jafe Oops, I accidentally flagged this message, and I can't seem to retract it, sorry :(

Or... did I?

OK, when I refreshed this chat room, the flag seemed to disappear, so is there a way for me to see which chat messages I've flagged (if at all)?

Mithical

6:01 AM

@HTM no

but chat flags are shown to all 10k+ users in chat, and six? people marking it invalid will decline the flag

HTM

Welp, hopefully the flag didn't just put my name on some sort of watchlist

Mithical

Chat flags are anonymous to everyone except a moderator on the host site (here Puzzling.SE) and even they can only see who flagged if they catch it live.

HTM

Ah, OK, thanks

Looks like there's still plenty for me to learn about the SE system

Mithical

There's a chat-wide list of recent flags at chat.stackexchange.com/admin/recent-flags, but anonymized even to mods on the host site.

@HTM chat has a lot of little obscure details that aren't well documented

HTM

@Mithical Link doesn't seem to take me anywhere, probably cause it's a mod/admin only page

Mithical

6:06 AM

Yep

(I can't see anything either, I typed the URL from memory)

HTM

Well, I'll just make sure not to do that again, and hopefully nothing else will come of this

(I'm on my iPad, and I accidentally tapped on the flag instead of the star, and when I tried to cancel my request, I hit "OK" instead)

Mithical

Yeah, it's really not a big deal, don't worry about it.

HTM

Thanks for the info :)

Mithical

np

HTM

6:56 AM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica They probably don't, because not everyone on SE is secretly a cryptic clue constructor :)

I'm just sharing them because I think they sound like CCs, not because they actually have a legitimate solution

Although in some very limited cases it's possible to come up with a plausible interpretation as a CC (see above for my most recent attempts)

Stiv

7:43 AM

@HTM Any more progress on the Easter Egg puzzle yet? Still a few steps to go... :)

(Will place a hint if nothing new in the next couple of days...)

HTM

@Stiv Oh, I haven't really been thinking about it all that much actually, I'll see what progress I can make right now

msh210

7:59 AM

@HTM that page says that the message you flagged has 1 flag, 2 counter-flags, 0 "meh"s and 0 mod flags. I don't know what that means. Probably @Mithical does.

@HTM you never know

HTM

@msh210 Turns out that StackExchange is actually being run by Big Cryptic - all the questions seem innocent enough, but it's really a ploy to gradually make us think that normal sentences contain puzzles when they aren't, distracting us enough for them to do their nefarious deeds

BTW @Stiv I just realized I haven't looked at the values next to the words in the table, I'm currently doing some spreadsheet manipulations to see if I can get anything useful out of them

Mithical

8:20 AM

@msh210 I do in fact know what that means

"counter-flags" are people clicking "invalid", "meh" is people clicking "I don't know"; each meh counts as a fraction of a counter-flag, although I don't remember the exact fraction

(mod flags are custom moderator flags that work differently from regular chat flags; those are the "flag for moderator attention" thing)

HTM

8:50 AM

@Stiv OK, so I've done quite a bit of data manipulation, but I'm failing to see how the instruction indicated by rot13(gur ybjrepnfr yrggref) can be used. rot13(V'ir gevrq fbegvat gur jbeqf jvguva rnpu frg naq gur anzrf bs gur crbcyr, ohg abguvat unf fgbbq bhg gb zr. Naq V qba'g guvax fbegvat gur tebhc anzrf vf gur cynl urer hayrff gurer'f n pnabavpny anzr sbe rnpu tebhc, juvpu V qbhog gurer vf.) (1/2)

Also, I still don't know what to do with the numbers - they don't look like indices or an A1Z26 type of substitution. I tried rot13(fhzzvat gur inyhrf nffbpvngrq jvgu rnpu jbeq jvguva rnpu pngrtbel, yvxr V fhttrfgrq va zl nafjre, ohg ntnva abguvat frrzvatyl hfrshy, naq fhzzvat qbrfa'g erdhver fbegvat juvpu gur vafgehpgvba vzcyvrf vf vzcbegnag.) (2/2)

Definitely a hint would be appreciated at this point!

(And I should go to bed soon as well)

Stiv

Okay, I'll drop a hint...

Hint dropped

HTM

Aight, thanks for that, I'll take a closer look after I get a good night's rest :)

Stiv

Sleep often helps!

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

12:21 PM

Another HNQ CC: Dairy-free bechamel? (Cooking SE)

Fastest draw in the west! (Code Golf SE)

Boss not responding to my email about promotion (Workplace SE)

Sphinx

3:33 PM

0

Q: How many types of reasoning are exhaustibly present?

While studying reasoning I found that there are books containing Verbal,NonVerbal,Logical and Analytical. Which reasoning topics am I supposed to study if I want an exhuastive coverage of the syllabus without any overlap?A detailed insight into this will be very helpful for me.

lateral-thinking

Rajorshi Koyal

3:44 PM

@bobble Can you help me out with the question that I posted..

I am seriously troubled with that.I am asking you since you edited and showed interest in the question.

bobble

Which question? Where?

Who are you?

Rajorshi Koyal

-2

Q: How many types of reasoning are exhaustibly present?

How many types of reasoning are exhaustibly present? While studying reasoning I found that there are books containing Verbal, NonVerbal, Logical and Analytical. Which reasoning topics am I supposed to study if I want an exhaustive coverage of the syllabus without any overlap? A detailed insight i...

logical-deduction

The one who posted this question.

You may answer it here also.

Rand al'Thor

← 7 messages moved from The Reading Room

Rajorshi Koyal

You may answer it here if you wish to.

bobble

Okay, Rajorish, I have absolutely no idea how to save your question. I have no answer. I was just tidying up the grammar in case other people can figure out how to help you.

In addition to my edit, I was also the first close-vote (Opinion-Based) and the first downvote

Rand al'Thor

3:48 PM

That question seems very broad and open-ended, probably too much to work well as a Stack Exchange question.

There is a Philosophy SE where it might fit, but I don't know their guidelines on what questions are considered too broad or discussiony.

Rajorshi Koyal

Ok no problem not an issue can you answer it here?

Maybe I will delete it myself.

bobble

(Too Broad might have worked as well, but I was just "has to be closed somehow" mindset)

> I have no answer

I'm not lying, I have no answer and there will be no objective answer to your question

Mithical

@RajorshiKoyal Someone editing something has absolutely nothing to do with their ability to answer it. bobble stated multiple times that she can't answer the question; please stop asking her to.

Rajorshi Koyal

Sorry

Gareth McCaughan

4:15 PM

@RajorshiKoyal To expand on what I just wrote in a comment on your question:

1. PSE is specifically for puzzles and questions about puzzles, and your question definitely doesn't fit that; so it's not on topic here, I'm afraid.

2. There is no One True Way to classify all different kinds of reasoning. There are a bunch of different ways of thinking, and a bunch of different things to think about, but they all have fuzzy edges and if you insist on dividing up the very general area of reasoning into different types, there are lots of ways to do it.

3. Dividing things up into kinda-arbitrary categories is a thing educators often like to do, because it gives them a framework for their books, courses, etc. But the choice of how to divide things up is mostly something they do, rather than reflecting a reality that Really Truly is divided up into those bits.

4. You can certainly identify some particular kinds of reasoning that might be worth paying attention to. (Say, formal logic, or reasoning by analogy, or scientific investigation.) But these things don't exist in isolation, and most of the time good thinking will involve different reasoning styles working together.

5. So if someone's going to write a book or something on (say) scientific reasoning, it will likely involve other things too. So you won't be able to find a bunch of books, or lecture courses, or whatever you have in mind, that cover every kind of reasoning without overlap.

6. The specific terms "verbal reasoning" and "nonverbal reasoning" you mentioned are ones I've usually seen in the context of tests of reasoning ability. If what you want is to get good at doing those tests, then probably the best advice is to find a bunch of tests, and repeat the cycle { try hard to solve one, look at the answers, think hard about things you couldn't do or got wrong }.

7. If that's the case, I hope you won't confuse reasoning with doing tests of reasoning ability. There's some correlation between being good at one and being good at the other, which is why the tests exist in the first place, but training for the tests probably won't make any difference at all to how good you actually are at thinking. (In an ideal world, no one would train for the tests at all, but of course you can't stop people trying to get ahead.)

Sphinx

4:46 PM

0

Q: A Connect Wall You Can Count On

The 16 words below may be partitioned into 4 groups of 4 connected words. The resulting four words also have a connection which is a seven-letter word. ONE POTATO PINK FOUR CORN RANCH SOY SINGLE PLANK TRICK CAR DREAMS ROMAN PEA RECORDS SIMPLE Can you identify the four groups...

word pattern connect-wall

HTM

6:18 PM

CCCC hints: 1. The fifth letter is E. 2. "for" does not clue a letter/word replacement.

bobble

Should that be parsed as "does not clue a [letter/word] replacement" or "does not clue a [letter]/[word replacement]"?

HTM

@bobble I mean a letter replacement or a word replacement - basically no replacing parts of a word with something else

bobble

thanks for clarifying :)

Sphinx

6:47 PM

0

Q: Coloring 5 largest numbers in each row and column yields at least 25 double-colored numbers

I have question about the answer given to this problem. The problem is reproduced below: This is a question from a very old American Mathematical Monthly, if I recall correctly. It has a very nice solution and illustrates an often useful technique. The integers 1, 2, ..., 225 are arranged in a 1...

mathematics explanation

0

Q: MARRIED : 47 :: BLESS :?

I am preparing for a competitive exam, and I am stuck on this problem. MARRIED : 47 :: BLESS : ? Options are: 62 57 26 32 What is the answer?

pattern

bobble

7:27 PM

grumbles I just noticed someone upvoted a partial "answer" (not even that, really) to a connect wall, which only had one non-great group presented. How in the world is that useful?

Please either choose to ask for answers to the original question, or ask for explanation of the answer given. Those are entirely separate questions and shouldn't be combined into one. As for your other query, newlines in comments are not allowed. — bobble 5 mins ago

Is my reasoning correct here? First part, not second

Gareth McCaughan

Seems like the whole thing would have been better as a comment on the answer the poster didn't understand. But I agree with you, and furthermore asking for answers to the original question is, duh, a duplicate of the original question.

bobble

They're asking for an explanation of a Math.SE answer

Gareth McCaughan

Oh, so they are.

I notice that they are in fact discussing it in comments on math.se, and the person who posted the answer is patiently explaining what they don't understand, but it's not clear that it's getting through.

bobble

Could you help in the comments of the Puzzling question? I'm a bit at a loss for what to say/how to phrase it

Gareth McCaughan

It's difficult because it seems like they just haven't understood the proof and they're asking a question that doesn't really make sense.

bobble

7:38 PM

Is it an acceptable (i.e. on-topic) question for Puzzling?

Gareth McCaughan

I'm kinda on the fence. On the one hand, it's a question about a puzzle. On the other hand, the basic problem is that Mr Agarwal apparently doesn't quite understand how mathematical induction works, which isn't really a puzzle question :-). My personal preference is to leave things alone in marginal cases.

I've posted an answer. Maybe it'll convince him; who knows?

(But if the underlying problem is just that Mr Agarwal fundamentally doesn't understand induction, rather than that for whatever reason this particular case is confusing him, I don't think it's Puzzling's job to teach him how induction works.)

bobble

11:56 PM

@GarethMcCaughan what are your thoughts on rolling back the above-discussed post, one the grounds that the edits change the question to invalidate the given answer?

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