The Sphinx's Lair

1:50 AM

Time new legends of monkey and bed 🙃

Have a great night (or day for people on @Stevo’s side of the planet).

Stevo

2:02 AM

ok bye!

should i answer the chess question?

Turns out not a fan of new legends of monkey lol

Pretty terrible first episode IMO

Stevo

2:31 AM

lol

Stevo

2:45 AM

the question is not a duplicate

Q: Where did I go wrong in this particular question?

3:12 AM

0

Question: "X is the daughter of K. F is mother-in-law of Z. T is the sister of E. A is the sister of K. P is the father of Q. Z has only one son. Q is father of A. Z is mother of K. X is married to W. E is the brother of Q. R is the sister of Z. Y is the mother of R." Doubt: Where is went wrong i...

logical-deduction family

3:37 AM

0

Q: Toilet Paper Math?

Please complete the following equations by filling in the missing digits. 5122 + 4454 = 4470 4847 + 1241 = 2440 4192 + 5077 + 4735 = 3912 740 + 2475 = 2280 614 + 548 + 4550 = 233 1562 + 4437 = 4??? 1932 + 2938 = 2??? 2404 + 73 = 2??? 1504 + 5032 = ??? Note: This post did not meet our quality st...

knowledge

4:29 AM

@msh210 As you already assumed, that's not the intended answer. (But I like the word.)

@MOehm You never gave a hint

It's been more than two days, so maybe a hint is in order.

Can we have one?

Yeah

C4 hint: The first letter is B.

???

4:32 AM

What do you mean by "???"? That the first letter can't be a B?

No, just confused

That doesn't match my intended wordplays

Well, the first letter of the alphabet is A, of course. :)

:P

5:06 AM

@Sphinx sixth banking exam question I have notes for, fourth by this user

All such questions have been confirmed or strongly suspected to be posted without permission.

2

Q: Its the roundest today! Add A merry feast to go with it!

7:19 AM

0

What are Marc, Oliver, Olivia, and Noah talking about: Marc: Its sure round! Oliver: If its not round I will eat my shoe! Olivia: Well, thats one's opinion. Its sure gleaming off that nice bright light of her's! Noah: Like it do we? Well we should go and take a closer look with our glassy ...

story

3

Q: Tapata (Tapa variation)

Rules: Shade some cells so that all shaded cell form one orthogonally connected area. Numbered cells are either tapa clue (represent the lengths of the shaded cell surrounding that clue) or pata clue (represent the lenghts of the unshaded cell surrounding that clue). If there are two or more num...

logical-deduction grid-deduction

Q: Extension to the coin flipping puzzle

7:43 AM

1

This is an extension to this great puzzle: Coin Flipping Puzzle. The main difference is we now have ternary sequences instead of binary sequences. Two criminals $A$ and $B$, were recently captured and brought to prison. They were then locked in two separate rooms. Known for being exceedingly smar...

mathematics probability coin-tossing

oAlt

7:54 AM

Is it worth making a reminder on Puzzling Meta to ping people correctly (no spaces, check the spelling of the user's name, make sure to add a space after the ping, etc.)? I've had it on the back of my mind for a while now because I've seen a few users make mistakes in pinging, but I'm torn between thinking it's important and thinking that it's really not. (Also, I want to know if someone has made this reminder before if ever.)

8:05 AM

I... doubt it'll help much, to be honest. The people making the mistakes (despite autocomplete existing) generally aren't the ones monitoring meta.

oAlt

8:37 AM

I will expound more later because busy moment but yes that's a valid point

Q: Guessing the color of the plate behind your head

9:46 AM

0

I heard this puzzle in a book about ten years ago, and it seems that there's a lot of variants of it here, but I couldn't find this exact variation. You share a cell with two other inmates, and all are awaiting execution. The executioner walks in, and offered them to play a game to have a chance ...

logical-deduction

RE: C4:

Tin can telephone

A tin can telephone is a type of acoustic (non-electrical) speech-transmitting device made up of two tin cans, paper cups or similarly shaped items attached to either end of a taut string or wire. It is a particular case of mechanical telephony, where sound (i.e., vibrations in the air) is converted into vibrations along a liquid or solid medium. These vibrations are transmitted through the medium (string) and then converted back to sound. == History == Before the invention of the electromagnetic telephone, there were mechanical acoustic devices for transmitting spoken words and music ove...

probably not related but that is "Over String"

You could colour in the dresses.

10:22 AM

@MOehm true

Would making https://puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/feeds/question/5276 be a feed in the room be a good idea?

Q: Does every validly posed Sudoku have at least one solution and if not what is the minimum number of givens for it to be unsolvable?

12:38 PM

0

By validly posed Sudoku means it doesn't break any Sudoku rules so only no duplicate 1 to 9 in rows, columns or square According to wikipedia: The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid, which for a well-posed puzzle has a single solution. Many others sources including Sudopedia do not...

sudoku solvability

Q: Blue eyes riddle: a counter-argument to accepted solution

2:17 PM

0

I would like help understanding my flawed logic in my following reasoning: The Blue-eyes Riddle is commonly expressed as A group of people with assorted eye colors live on an island. They are all perfect logicians -- if a conclusion can be logically deduced, they will do it instantly. No one kno...

logical-deduction

@Sphinx someone please replace the images with tables/text

@bobble o7

2:39 PM

I think we just need a new close reason. Something along the lines of: "Formatting - It is against PSE's policy to post text as images without an accompanying text readable alternative. Please edit your post to comply with this policy (Link to table faq)" Closes for this reason should go into the ON HOLD queue (if we have one on PSE)

It should be noted that @bobble and others have done a lot of work cleaning up old questions to conform to table formatting, and they should be commended for that work. However, it is unfair to all to have to do this for NEW questions.

Jafe

out of curiosity, which policy is that?

What about people who post questions with bad grammar etc.? Bad formatting isn't off-topic, but it is a downvote reason. Feel free to downvote away for insufficient prior effort.

The one we're discussing now. Maybe a meta post is in order.

@ChrisCudmore I think current efforts to de-image and re-table stuff is sufficient

New users especially can easily be overwhelmed with all of our rules and policies; an edit and gentle comment to improve next time is what I tend to do.

2:44 PM

It's about the amount of work. It's easy enough to make quick fixes, or inline an image for a new user. But reading and retyping text that's in images is a huge amount of work.

@ChrisCudmore Mmm. I don't think that'll fly, especially since there are puzzles that cannot be transcribed (thinking of imgur-maze as an example). The intent is laudable, but I don't think it can reasonably be turned into a close reason.

Obviously, accessibility is limited to "reasonable accommodation" imgur maze type questions can't be reasonably accomodated.

3:32 PM

@bobble seems like the best course of action

* note that gentle comments are occasionally restricted to edit summaries or omitted if I'm busy, which is unfair to the user but anyways

@AncientSwordRage this is what I do too. That being said, I limit what I'll edit to a few paragraphs or a table with under 50 cells. Any more than that and there's a close reason for it "needs details or clarity".

Additionally, I'll still advise the author to make the edit themselves if I deem it too much work for me to do for them. If they don't make the adjustments within an hour or two, I'll VTC at that point.

I mean, if the table is code/MathJax and large, it often is possible to use find-and-replace to format it for Markdown

@bobble True, but not from an image.

does anybody have strong opinions about this:

5 hours ago, by AncientSwordRage

Would making https://puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/feeds/question/5276 be a feed in the room be a good idea?

3:45 PM

The Sandbox? Honestly, it might be better to make a new meta question if we want to formalize it

@bobble What do you mean by "formalize"?

The current one has the baggage of "Riddle" and the sandbox blowup history

@Mithical Formally say "this is a place to post your not-necessarily-riddle puzzles for feedback, and we'll help you with them".

@bobble makes sense

Mmm. No strong feelings either way.

I am thinking of how they have it set up in The Nineteenth Byte?

3:54 PM

Thing about Code Golf, it's a soft requirement to post in the Sandbox, and it's something that experienced and new users alike do. Different from here

Q: White to play and mate in 3 - adapted from real game

1

This is adapted from a real game between GMs where white played the King's Gambit. I changed the position slightly (moved one piece) because there were actually two mates available, with one more prosaic than the other. The GM chose the less prosaic one, and I wanted to show it to you. Not crazy ...

no-computers chess

@bobble that's true, but is it still useful to see new questions in our sandbox, posted in chat?

I might be biased, as I just used it

just/several hours ago

@AncientSwordRage I concur with the idea, though the sandbox doesn't see a lot of traffic, from my understanding.

Perhaps a precursor would be a meta post asking if the community is for or against the idea and propose a few ideas on how you believe we could tackle the issues

It's possible it could see more traffic if we promote it more. Most new users will never find meta, let alone an obscure little sandbox

We could add a box like golf has recommending it.

Q: An info box to point new users to The Sandbox

4:06 PM

22

So along with site graduation, one new option we have is an info box on the sidebar. For example, you can see what these look like on Law or Judaism Stack Exchange (directly above the "featured on meta" box). These are used to link to important meta posts that new users need to be aware of. Liii...

discussion status-completed sandbox graduation

@bobble true

6:57 PM

@Tacoタコス even if you think it should be on Arqade not here, there's nothing wrong with closing it here if it's off-topic, and if it's migrated it'll be closed automatically anyways.

"This should be migrated" is a reason to close

Jeremy Dover

Hey @BeastlyGerbil...loved the Möbius strip sudoku :-)

@bobble fair enough, just didn't know it was closed automatically. Wouldn't want to mislead new users int thinking no action is being taken on my recommendation for migration.

Q: What is migration and how does it work?

198

I posted a question which was closed as off-topic and it seems like it could fit on another site in the network. How can I go about moving it there? What is migration? When can a question be migrated, and who can migrate it? When should I consider migration, and when is it inappropriate? What c...

support faq migration close-reasons off-topic

here is giant migration FAQ

Thanks! :) not trying to cause issues, just trying to help :)

Well, we can close it here and then get a mod to migrate it, or get a mod to migrate it by closing it

There's not a load of difference but I'd rather close an off-topic question as quickly as possible and then let the mods sort it out later

7:09 PM

Voted in support

Removed my additional comments

Leaves one orphaned response from you, if you want to remove it

done

@bobble I'm getting that way, it's just been a small learning curve

I know there are a lot of policies >.<

Q: Commonality of squared sequence terms

7:37 PM

0

Let's have the following two sequences: (S1) 6, 24, 90, 336, 1254, 4680,..... (S2) 12, 42, 156, 582, 2172, 8106,.... What do the squares of the numbers in the second sequence have in common?

number-sequence sequence

7:51 PM

is "like in a fairytale" a synonym for "fabled"?

I'd accept it in a Cryptic.

ok

thanks :)

thesaurus.com/browse/fabled lists "Storied, Mythical and Fictional" so I think you're good.

8:17 PM

any synonyms for "doesn't"?

are you working on a cryptic? Or something else?

:)

yes

Try thesaurus.com/browse/don't and see if it fits. Might need to conjugate

Link didn't past properly. Need to add 't to the URL.

Damned encoding!

Q: How to solve the following puzzle?

8:51 PM

0

If it is sunny, I am wet. If I wear a raincoat, I sweat. When it rains, there is no sun, but I am dry; and when there is wind and no sun, my sweat evaporates. In a rainy day, if it is windy and I wear a raincoat, which one of the following statements is most appropriate? a. I am dry b. I am wet c...

logical-deduction puzzle-creation

Q: How fast can a shapeshifter destroy a kingdom?

9:40 PM

0

You are a shapeshifter that takes on the form of their victims and you've infiltrated the opposing kingdom's ranks, disguised as a lowly pawn . The opposing king has you presently assigned to the northeastern border to assist the rook in charge of the area: You send word back to your own kingdom...

story optimization chess

9:50 PM

@Sphinx That's a lot of detail.

10:05 PM

0

Q: Clearing the Snakes

While space was being cleared for a new building, a bunch of scitales came out of the water to munch on the worker's lunches, before falling asleep in the way of everything. You, having a knack for puzzling scenarios, have been sent out to drive away the serpents with a basilisk-whistle. However,...

story strategy