The Sphinx's Lair

3:06 AM

@Stiv this is (-a)QUA + ® + _T + _Z (=QUARTZ, a mineral)

although i don't quite understand why the "cap" that's removed is the first 3 letters instead of just the first

maybe the idea is that the last letter is covered by multiple caps and they're all removed?

Q: How should you distribute the fighting power?

Alice and Bob both have N warriors under their command, numbered 1~N, and $1$ point of fighting power at their disposal. Before the game, they privately distribute the power between their warriors. When the game begins, both send their warrior #1 to a 1v1 fight. If a warrior with power x fights o...

AncientSwordRage

3:26 AM

@Jafe that's so much better than where I was headed: Mineral water - ARTM =INERLWTER

That well known word 'inerlwter'

msh210

4:21 AM

@Jafe … which I guess is why nothing really made sense for me for "won't fizz". :-)

@Jafe like Dr. Seuss's Bartholomew

Sid

4:42 AM

@Jafe why is aqua without "a" = QUA and not QU?

Q: How many bottles can you drink?

4:57 AM

You have 120 bottles of Cola and 120 bottles of Sprite. You can exchange 3 empty Cola bottles for a new bottle of Sprite. You can exchange 4 empty Sprite bottles for a new bottle of Cola. You can borrow bottles, but must return them in the end. What is the maximal number of bottles of drink that ...

mathematics

msh210

@Sid Either way is valid, I think. It's AQUA with an A removed: it doesn't instruct us specifically to remove all of 'em.

1 hour later…

6:14 AM

@Jafe That was my intention, yes, using 'caps' here to mean 'tops of unspecified length'. Turned out to be quite hard to think up wordplay for 'TZ' without resorting to 'Tanzania'... Really wanted to fit 'spritz' into it but couldn't quite get it to work in the time available.

i see

i know i've used "leaders" and the like to mean "multiple letters from the start"... in this case it wasn't clear to me that was the intention because it's extraction from multiple words which would be in the plural either way

CCCC: Buddha jumps over the wall, perhaps very high (4)

@Jafe On reflection, that's probably a fairer way to use it - one word at a time. I'll bear that in mind...

Deusovi

6:31 AM

i typically see "leaders" either referring to first letters of multiple words, or exactly two letters from the front of a single word

at least in the puzzles i've done, it's convention to indicate anything other than those cases in some other way

makes sense

6:52 AM

@Jafe SOUP = SO + UP (very high)

TIL

that's right

Never heard of that before!

CCCC: Interpret Celsius as unit of length? (6)

7:41 AM

@Jafe Funny surface

@Stiv PARSE + C

7:59 AM

crossword's up!

geography cryptic-crosswords

8:15 AM

Q: Traveller's fatigue

This is part 10 of the puzzle series that started at Living the traveller's dream. Each part is solvable on its own. Dear Puzzling, I have noticed that the longer a trip lasts, the harder it is to get a kind of “wow” effect from the things around me. At the start of a trip I might be amazed at...

@oAlt Yup :)

8:36 AM

CCCC: Interpret Celsius as accurate while making primarily absurd number in turn (8)

@oAlt C + (a -> ON<)S + TRUE

9:13 AM

Noooo I had 7 clues left @Stiv :P

@Jafe correct

heheh

CCCC: Interpret Celsius like someone who's spent a long time in the sun in audition (10)

@oAlt Ah, sorry! I know that feeling well :)

Wahahah

@Jafe UNDERSTAND, ANDERS + TANNED homophone (Wikipedia tells me that the A in Anders Celsius is pronounced the same as 'u' in "cut")

that's right

(it may not be exactly the same but i thought it's close enough)

that's true

I listened to the voice sample for that phoneme but it didn't seem that close to sounding like the u in cut, contrary to the approximation that Wikipedia claimed

9:41 AM

I posted this clue months ago, but took it down to improve it. Hopefully no one searches for the initial version (I mean, I can't stop you, but it would be kind of unfair). >_<

CCCC: Briefly, the legislature of the United Kingdom (Houses): everyone gets attached to the crown of Elizabeth ll, perhaps (8)

1 hour later…

10:45 AM

@oAlt ALL+E_ inside PARL. makes PARALLEL

11:03 AM

@Jafe correct

Anonymus 25

Beautiful :D

thx :00

the reason why i didn't alter and send this here immediately was because i mistakenly put "II" instead of "ll"

and I doesn't look like a line segment because of the serifs

that's sneaky

hahah

Dec 8 '20 at 10:28, by oAlt

CCCC: Legislature of the United Kingdom: Houses clean the crown of Elizabeth II, perhaps (8)

(and "clean" meaning "all" might have not been common, which I guess was another reason for retraction)

(and it felt a bit unfair to not have an indicator for abbreviation of "Parliament", so that's a third :P )

11:18 AM

CCCC: Kind of love that's wide open (5)

11:38 AM

@Jafe AGAPE ddef

that's right

Silver-backed gorilla too...

hehehe

11:58 AM

CCCC: Renowned university turns down doctor of unknown origin (6)

I know the answer but my stockpile contains exactly zero clues so I shall refrain from answering :P

Anonymus 25

12:40 PM

My gut is forcing me to say WHO

@Stiv (O+X+FO+RD)<

ooh that's a good one

i like that a lot

1:00 PM

@Jafe Absolutely!

there's an RD< in harvard as well, which i spent way too long considering considering it's the wrong number of letters

CCCC: Mixed-terrain shoes, ultimately (8)

TRAINER* + S?

that's right

i love simple anagram questions like that

especially with the &lit built in

i knew it was going to be fast but it's fine because i need to get to bed :P

1:06 PM

CCCC: Gold, bronze or copper (6)

bobble

1:44 PM

AU + BURN? (not entirely sure how bronze=BURN but I was looking at a list of colors similar to copper and the AU at the start was too tempting)

2 hours later…

msh210

3:16 PM

@bobble bronze ≈ burn as verbs

Q: A rhyme riddle puzzle

What am I referring to? It can't be made by a Snake, whether it is asleep or awake. It can be made by a Beagle, or sometimes even by an Eagle. Found in various places, we humans can easily make, You dont need hands to make it, Did this puzzle make your head shake?

wordplay

2 hours later…