The Sphinx's Lair

12:55 AM

@Deusovi yea

2:56 AM

anyone available for help regarding a cryptic clue i'm making? (spoiler warning: i'm planning to use the clue in my next crossword)

TakingNotes

3:06 AM

no problem, i'd be happy to help

don't solve cryptics that much anyway because clues are harder to solve than make

oAlt

aight, i'll drop an ots link in a while

@TakingNotes onetimesecret.com/secret/mv4ws0zgimke6l7gh7393ghhdy70sff

TakingNotes

3:37 AM

How should I respond to this? It's my first time interacting with this form of communication, sorry...

bobble

3:47 AM

Compose a response and make an OTS link, then reply to oAlt with the link

Chat etiquette means no one else should click on the link

oAlt

yeah, basically do what i just did but with your response

TakingNotes

4:35 AM

@oAlt onetimesecret.com/secret/1fetpt7rjhu44lv4r1wlzzz9ztq8mul

Jafe

something like xxxxxCHARGER could maybe be a plane/train piece, and a charger is a car model which could be the hinted common part shared by the answer and wordplay (both from "to charge")

so the 5 first letters would need to be clued by "knucklehead at odds with mother"...

the order is reversed because "A has B at first"

aaand all that falls apart because i can't count -- the C would be the 6th letter, not 7th

note to self: stop being a knucklehead

oAlt

4:51 AM

@TakingNotes thanks :D

@Jafe Loll

TakingNotes

@oAlt no problem!

Sphinx

0

Q: Whats the genersl method to solve this

I need help n how to solve this puzzle, the puzzle is very self - explanatory

mathematics

0

Q: Three triangles passing through every dot of a 5x5 grid

25 dots are drawn as a 5x5 regular square grid. Can you draw 3 triangles that pass through every dot? The corners of the triangles must lie on the dots, ie., they cannot lie outside the grid.

mathematics geometry

Sphinx

5:49 AM

0

Q: Four triangles passing through every dot of a 7x7 grid

49 dots are drawn as a 7x7 regular square grid. Can you draw 4 triangles that pass through every dot? The corners of the triangles must lie on the dots, ie., they cannot lie outside the grid. This is a harder version of this puzzle: Three triangles passing through every dot of a 5x5 grid

mathematics geometry

Graylocke

6:39 AM

Ah... the indistinct line between puzzle and algebra.

msh210

9:56 AM

I'll hint again, since there's no real C4 progress and my last two hints were (the first) hardly a hint and (the second) probably already guessed at by most of you.

C4 hint.

Stiv

10:12 AM

Argh, I know what it is at last! Just got to nail down the wordplay... (I can see several parts of it...)

@msh210 Answer is ANTIMACASSAR. Wordplay is ANTI-MA ('at odds with mother, at first') + C(ASS)AR ('knucklehead' = ASS, in CAR)

And of course, the answer is this

(usually found on seats in a plane or train, to rest your head on)

msh210

@Stiv Yep!

Stiv

Phew! That was a long time solving, yet the wordplay looks so straightforward once you see it!

msh210

Yeah, the "at first" and "head" and "at odds" were meant as red herrings, but at the end of the day it was a simple construction.

Stiv

Cleverly done

msh210

Thanks. Nicely found.

Stiv

10:22 AM

Eventually!

msh210

Did the picture give it to you, or was the timing mere coincidence?

Stiv

Well, at first the picture was incredibly UNhelpful, as they hardly feature very prominently, as I'm sure you intended! ;-) But it did then get me thinking about things you find around your seat (I'd previously focussed on the cockpit rather than the passenger cabin), so I guess in a way it helped after all!

msh210

I'm glad! :-)

Stiv

10:38 AM

CCCC: Condiment in Thai cooking (6)

Jafe

TAHINI*

Stiv

Bingo :)

Jafe

CCCC: Request to perform piece of music that's enjoyable (8)

Stiv

@Jafe PLEASING = PLEA + SING

Jafe

that's right! back to you

Stiv

10:48 AM

Ha! (This is keeping me entertained during a meeting...)

Jafe

not involving a full-screen presentation, i hope

with the audience being like "hey hey i know this one"

Stiv

Ha, thankfully not the presenter today!

(Though that might be a good way to crowd-source answers...)

msh210

11:05 AM

@Jafe thanks, you made me crack up - fortunately not in a meeting

Stiv

11:16 AM

CCCC: Conflict in South Asia to end with onset of Jaipur independence? (6)

Jerry Dean

Swaraj=S(war)A+J_

Stiv

@JerryDean Yup! Your turn :)

Jerry Dean

Yay! That's my first cracked CCCC!

msh210

bravo!

Stiv

(The 'A' is intended more as (-asi)A rather than using 'SA' as 'South Asia' since I didn't know if that was really standard use - but well done!)

Jerry Dean

11:21 AM

The problem is, I haven't really thought about creating one...

Stiv

Now's your chance!

Jerry Dean

@msh210 Thanks!

@Stiv Yeah, I guess SA is usually for South America.

Alright, here goes...

CCCC: Story about belief with benefit only, followed by conflict to decapitate racoon. (7, 7)

msh210

(Incidentally, whenever I see your name, @JerryDean, the song Rock On comes to mind.)

Jerry Dean

@msh210 I've actually never heard that song; this username is actually my nickname+the homophone for my real surname!

msh210

@JerryDean here's your chance

Jerry Dean

11:33 AM

@msh210 Nice song! The subtle percussions sound quite satusfying, and the melody is great!

msh210

11:46 AM

thanks, I wrote it myself

(no, I didn't)

Jerry Dean

I was literally on the brink of asking "Did you really?" :D

msh210

:-)

Jafe

12:49 PM

heheh

msh210

1:50 PM

For the C4, if the definition is at the end, then I think it must be "raccoon". Unless there's some video game which is a conflict to decapitate raccoon. (But searching didn't find me one.) But I can't find any 7,7 phrases that mean "raccoon". So I'm guessing the definition is at the start. "Story about belief" could possibly be a PASSION PAGEANT but I don't see how the wordplay would work. "Story (about belief (with benefit (only(, followed by conflict))))" could clue a story title or genre.

Oh, wait, I just noticed it's spelled "racoon". Hm.

Jafe

2:04 PM

"corona spread out" could be used to clue the word racoon but i don't think that would be fair to an animal that always wears a mask

2

re: the c4, i think "story about belief" does seem like the most likely definition candidate

are there specific words for male/female/young raccoon or something like that?

msh210

boar, sow, kit

. . . or so Google informs me

@Jafe on its eyes, though

Sphinx

2:33 PM

0

Q: What is the battle?

You wake up in a strange room. No one is there, as far as you can tell. But there are three doors, a piece of paper and a numpad, which is a standard keyboard. (this is N. O. T. a 'what door should you open' question). The piece of paper, although it is tattered and old, reads this: Inside each ...

knowledge cipher

Sphinx

2:58 PM

-3

Q: How to get 10 in computer science, using the number 4 exactly four times, and two signs exactly and two operation + exactly?

How to get 10 in computer science, using the number 4 exactly four times, and two signs exactly and two operation + exactly ?

mathematics calculation-puzzle formation-of-numbers computer-science

Stiv

3:36 PM

@Jafe Of course, the def could equally just be 'story', with 'about' = 're' then another word for 'belief', etc.

I'm thinking we might be looking for the name of a book

Jerry Dean

4:10 PM

Um.. Just want to clarify: all prepositions in the wordplay part are not part of the wordplay, it's just me being an inexperienced cluer and cannot resist putting them in.

bobble

Unless there's a reading of the clue that can use them as no-ops, such addition of prepositions for surface reading is decidedly non-Ximenean

Stiv

5:33 PM

@JerryDean Don't worry - we know it's your first one; you're not going to be judged and cast aside on the basis of this clue :) This one is just a foundation to work from. Learn from the feedback you receive and keep practising - that's how a lot of us got into writing CC's. Feel free to drop a clue every 24 hours-ish that it remains unsolved to steer people towards the answer.

3

bobble

@Sphinx dupe of this, not that it matters at this point

they're really insistent on the "correct" solution to the puzzle

Feb 8 at 23:03, by bobble

> Edit if the post is good quality, but you can improve the post to make it better. Avoid editing posts that should be closed or deleted, as it will remove the post from review.

Repeat number... 6? 13? 592? 'fraid I've lost count

Sphinx

8:22 PM

-1

Q: CFNSE Subtest 5 Questions 3 and 4, How to solve?

does anyone know how to solve these 2 items? you have to draw only ONE LINE and write down the coordinates... the link to the test https://www.docdroid.net/6NH6Kw2/cfnse-pdf answer submission here http://web.archive.org/web/20150826220531/http://www.etienne.se/cfnse/scoresheet.htm norms here http...

riddle

bobble

8:40 PM

@bobble this was also meant as a request for someone else to NAA-flag the answer

Dmihawk

9:15 PM

howdy folks :)

bobble

I spy an upside-down man

Dmihawk

how you doing bobble?

bobble

bobble is a tad tired but is chugging along

Dmihawk

lol I can't help but picture a train wearing a bobblie hat now :)

bobble

Is this open-ended?

Is golfing MathJax code open-ended?

Dmihawk

9:34 PM

probably, but at 5 years since it was last active, is it relevant?

I'd argue that any code-related golfing problem belongs on code-golf, not PSE

TakingNotes

@bobble This openly states itself to be open-ended, so I'd reckon that it certainly is.

bobble

It's relevant because I am ~~on the warpath against open-ended puzzles~~ / ~~shovelling open-ended puzzles into the fiery pits of Down There~~ / ~~maniacally laughing as I crush the hearts of open-ended puzzle posters~~ / trying to close/edit a lot of open-puzzles to clean up the tag.

Dmihawk

ah ok, fair enough then, if you've got a good reason for doing so

keep shoveling :P

bobble

the reasons being that they're off-topic, we don't want to encourage new users who might see a well-received old one and try to emulate it, and their open-endedness encourages new answers (which closing will stop)

TakingNotes

BOBBLE: DESTROYER OF OPEN-ENDED PUZZLES

coming to a cinema near you

bobble

10:23 PM

5

Q: Planned maintenance scheduled for Wednesday, June 30, 2021 at 01:00 UTC (Tuesday June 29 9:00 PM US/EDT)

tl;dr; Planned service interruption that will impact all Stack Exchange sites, Jobs, and Chat. All sites will be read-only for up to 1 hour on Wed June 30, 2021 at 01:00 UTC (Tue June 29 9:00 PM US/EDT). Stack Overflow might experience some instability during this time as well. Enterprise cloud h...

discussion featured announcements maintenance downtime

advance warning - this'll take down main-site and chat

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