The Sphinx's Lair - 2021-06-15

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12:01 AM

hmm, "noodles" could also mean "heads"

12:50 AM

@Jafe Or pasta

"Mix up" can't be an anagram indicator , or it will be an indirect anagram, so that's one possibility out of the way

AncientSwordRage

1:35 AM

@Anonymus25 why'd it has to be an indirect anagrams? It could be anagram(message) + some(noodles)...?

1:59 AM

Anagraming a synonym of a word is indirect, so to anagram a synonym of message won't work

2:25 AM

@Sphinx what a day to be out. Why would you use a tag that says, "OPEN-ENDED PUZZLES ARE NO LONGER IN SCOPE" - did you not see? Why did no one close-vote before me?

AncientSwordRage

2:36 AM

@Anonymus25 I didn't say an synonym of message

@bobble I didn't look at the question 😞

3:22 AM

@bobble On mobile (or at least on my mobile phone), you don't see tag descriptions when posting. You choose them blindly.

C4 hint: The last letter is P.

Yes ... but whenever I use a tag I haven't before, I take care to go to the tag page to check the usage guidance

4:05 AM

I may have asked this before: if I were to post a puzzle that's not my own creation but the source from where I got it also has the solution in it. So what's the correct procedure here? Should I edit the question with the source after the solution has been provided?

Can "Mix up some" be a reversal indicator, reversing PASTA?

If so, the word is ___ATSAP

6

A: Is it acceptable to post a puzzle from another source and edit in attribution only once it's solved?

This should be acceptable ... As far as I can see, it's the only way to combine the two principles of turning PSE into a great repository of puzzles (both original ones and those copied from elsewhere with suitable attribution) and encouraging people to solve puzzles based on their own ingenuity...

4:31 AM

@bobble Thank you

WHATSAPP seems to have PASTA backwards in it

0

Q: What is wrong with these puzzles?

I think teh puzzles on this site are too hard. I can’t figure out hardly none of them. The ones that look easy seem to get closed??? Can someone tell the reason? Here are some examples of puzzles that I could actually solve, but keep getting closed. They seem to use neat things like morse code,...

word enigmatic-puzzle

sorry for stealing but

@msh210 WH(i -> ATSAP<)P, probably? only problem is that's an application, not the actual message

assist credits go to @Anonymus25 and @Sid

@oAlt Yes indeed. ("I WhatsApped him.")

ah, never used it in that sense. thx for the clarification though

Not the CCCC: About about about about about about (1)

CCCC: "About about about about about about (1)" - shown in conversation in Puzzling, ultimately (10)

Um.

4:39 AM

What did "some" do in that previous clue?

uhh smth like James -> some bloke

/some guy

Also I'm not proud of certain things in my clue, but I can say that the wordplay and def are 98% fair

Don't quite get that. I understand it's Mix = WHIP with I ("me") being replaced by PASTA backwards ("up noodles")

I don't understand what's "some" doing in the clue

hmm maybe merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/some would help?

some pasta -> a certain pasta as far as i understand

4:57 AM

Ah I guess, "some noodles" = pasta

I didn't like to use "noodles" to clue PASTA because the former is a plural noun while the latter is a non-count noun. But "some noodles" is more similar to a non-count noun in its meaning, so I was happier using that. I thought there might be some objection that "some" is extra, but defended it to myself on the grounds that not all pasta is noodles (depending on whom you ask; there are many and varied opinions on this online) so it's a definition by example without "some".

(and the reordered, fairer CCCC clue would be "Message: Mix some noodles up for me")

5:20 AM

yeah, and not all noodles are pasta too

i'm fine with "(some) noodles" = PASTA

I second

5:38 AM

@oAlt also true

0

Q: A Sudoku With A Trick

Normal Sudoku rules apply in this puzzle. This is an incredibly difficult puzzle to solve. This puzzle has a very clever and ingenuous trick in it. I request solvers to show their work at different stages of the puzzle (as they see fit). This puzzle is not my own. Proper attribution will be prov...

grid-deduction sudoku

6:30 AM

@oAlt C. + ON + C. + ER< + _N (I) _N _G

Very nice clue.

Is "About about about about about about (1)" supposed to have a solution, too?

it's five Cs for the first five abouts, then remove four for the "not the CCCC" or something like that :P

i went down the wrong rabbit hole looking for words like RExxxxxING... it turns out there are a lot of those

Hahah

@msh210 correct and thx :D

And nah, I didn't intend the "Not the CCCC" to have a solution

Also, the causes for dissatisfaction: 1) The third and fifth "about" (on and re) are of the same sense as the first "about" (concerning = on = re); 2) Using "(1)" to clue 'I', even if the parentheses are technically punctuation marks (and useless ones at that), seems a bit questionable? misleading? Idk

CCCC: A molecule in wolf pack leader, perhaps (5,3)

@oAlt IMHO your issue #2 is a nonissue.

6:48 AM

Ahh

I mean, it's perfectly fine.

ALPHA DOG for the CCCC, I think - could it be A + LPHADOG or A + LPHA + DOG or A + LPH + A DOG... no clue what "molecule" is doing

I think LPH/LPHA would be the molecule somehow, but idk yet

this, obvs :P

it is a fact generally accepted, that if you run any series of nonsense letters/sounds together, it's a chemical compound somewhere

3

Hehe, and it's a server error for me

6:54 AM

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase ?

> Lactase (also known as lactase-phlorizin hydrolase, or LPH)

Oh interesting

Still not sure what to do with "in" though apart from parsing it as a container indicator which doesn't seem to sit right with me

can "in" = "a"?

Hmm don't think so

I also remembered that alpha particles exist, but that still doesn't explain the "in"

well, Google tells me that there are molecules called "LPHA", so maybe A(LPHA)DOG?

ye

6:58 AM

but then,

5 mins ago, by bobble

it is a fact generally accepted, that if you run any series of nonsense letters/sounds together, it's a chemical compound somewhere

Yeah... Not sure if msh210 would go down that deep of a rabbit hole

@bobble that's not the intended solution

Ah nice

what if, hear me out, I find a molecule named "alpha dog" :P

hahah

7:40 AM

Early C4 hint: The clue would not have been as elegant had I included the word "a" between "in" and "wolf".

7:54 AM

(Of course, you may not consider it elegant anyway. But it'd be even less so had I included "a" there.)

wolf is a verb meaning something like "eat quickly", no?

@Jafe it is

@Jafe So is GLUTTONY possiblr?

@Anonymus25 I find that gluttony is always possible.

2

1 hour later…

9:28 AM

2

Q: What is a Disguised Word™?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I like to call it a Disguised Word™. Find the rule that decides whether a word is a Disguised Word™ or not, and why they are called ...

pattern word-property

4 hours later…

1:10 PM

0

Q: Largest number with no repeating digit pairs

What is the largest whole number that you can form, such that no pair of consecutive digits occurs more than once? For example you can have 34543, but you cannot have 34534 as the pair "34" occurs twice. Note that the number cannot have leading zeros.

1 hour later…

AncientSwordRage

2:33 PM

@msh210 I concur

1 hour later…

Gareth McCaughan

4:01 PM

"pack leader, perhaps (5,3)" really seems like it wants to be BROWN OWL. But the only molecule I see in there is NO, and if BROWWL means wolf I'm at a loss to see why. So I think this brown owl is likely a red herring.

1 hour later…

5:17 PM

0

Q: Very difficult visual pattern puzzle

I saw this question in an IQ test, but I have no idea after thinking for very long time.

1 hour later…

6:33 PM

@Sphinx at a certain point in time I started downvoting IQ test questions on-sight and it sure does feel good. (I also usually end up editing to make better titles and voting to close as lacking attribution at the same time)

AncientSwordRage

Sounds hecking cathartic

Have we discounted anything like NUMBER ONE or FIRST PLACE as the meaning for pack leader?

I got an upvote on an old answer and it feels like a guilt-trip since I haven't posted for so long :) Got distracted with Lit and school

@AncientSwordRage for one, I was assuming that "pack leader, perhaps" (or similar) was the def, so it would have to be (5, 3)

AncientSwordRage

user image

@bobble 'perhaps' would indicate that

FIRST ONE or something

maybe "A" is the def O_o

AncientSwordRage

6:43 PM

@bobble ALPHA BET

@Jafe yeah that's sort of my thinking

If pack leader meant in a race, like you get in cycling

hmm the A could be ALPHA

or was that considered already...

(it's an uppercase a in the clue though, not an uppercase alpha)

A = alpha as in the NATO alphabet.

Or was that Alfa?

alfa, yeah

for some reason

AncientSwordRage

AMINO is 5 letters long, and comes in alpha varieties

A Molecule IN →AMIN+O???

The stretchiest of stretches

7:31 PM

Just dumped five more open-ended puzzles into the Close queue. And adjusted the tags of one that was [optimization] in disguise

I'm in and out of here since on vacation

7:52 PM

I just learned that one of the people suspected of being Jack the Ripper was a shoemaker, John Pizer. Apparently, the police first suspected him when they heard him singing "awl the single ladies".

2 hours later…

Gareth McCaughan

9:32 PM

"pack leader, perhaps" could also maybe be ACE or KING

9:54 PM

On further consideration, I really don't like this C4. I'm tempted to give it away and let @oAlt (the last setter before me) take the next one.

I think I'll do that if I don't hear an outcry of "Surely not!"s.

10:15 PM

@msh210 I'd consider dropping hints rather than burninating it entirely. Someone's bound to get it eventually, and that always feels more satisfying!

Gareth McCaughan

10:46 PM

I think it would need to be really bad for abandoning it to be the Right Thing.

10:57 PM

Okay, so I'll drop a hint, sooner than I otherwise might've, instead.

C4 reworded, which will thus serve as a hint: A molecule in wolf pack leader (female)? (5,3)

Gareth McCaughan

11:23 PM

looks even more as if it ought to be BROWN OWL but I still don't see any reason why it should be other than the definition :-)

(most likely BROWN OWL is deliberate misdirection)

11:43 PM

Could be QUEEN BEE, but I don't see the wordplay

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