The Sphinx's Lair - 2021-09-24

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4:03 AM

0

Q: A Loooooong Sequence of Calculations

$53466+25123+16334+86556+5856\cdot 32454+8565+2235+7067-2345\cdot 1086+|23457|+4754\cdot 89510+9523-3458-9234+84233-|947\cdot 137\cdot 98\cdot 142-407119|\cdot (-1024)\cdot 5^{10}+645\cdot 9814\cdot 181+7554\cdot 235+|346\cdot 23+646-979+2357-846-123\cdot 6\cdot 9-1210|\cdot 12-454\cdot 7542+14...

enigmatic-puzzle lateral-thinking

4:28 AM

In a line: "Credits end, dissappearing musical, middle bill gone..." Amazing! (10)

Smooth surface there, very proud :D

Is that one illegal? I would like a clue check

4 hours later…

8:33 AM

0

Q: How to Sort the Bugs

There have been a lot more proto-bugs growing in the water at the bathhouse. Some of them have been caught, and you've been sent to sort them by kingdom. Unfortunately for you, you haven't been given any rules or tests to determine the kingdom of these creatures; all you have is a small table of ...

AncientSwordRage

9:17 AM

@Sphinx why did this get so many downvotes?

9:46 AM

0

Q: 100 100 riddle!

How do you make this into 200 only using 1 straight line?

10:11 AM

0

Q: Tiling three pears with three-pair hexominos

The 21 hexominos below are all those that can be made by joining three dominos together (i.e. they have a perfect matching with respect to the graph of their squares) and are not rectangles. The objective is to tile the three 42-square pears below with these hexominos, seven to a pear; some hexom...

mathematics no-computers tiling polyomino

2 hours later…

12:17 PM

@AncientSwordRage 🤷‍♀️ it happens lol

Could've been the word nude; good thing Deusovi advised me to change the initial line 4.

Otherwise, prolly would've been a lot worse.

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス the votes came in later though ... ?

12:46 PM

some downvotes are just inexplicable

case in point: someone downvoted the "puzzling easter egg hunt" puzzle in the best puzzles meta post

@Jafe Hey, I put that there! I got downvoted :(

But my rep wasn't affected, ?

yeah meta votes don't affect rep

it's like, why even post there? :P

1:10 PM

@Jafe to make PSE a better place for everyone 🙃

Lol of course you know that though

1:23 PM

Do we have an RSS feed for new posts on main and meta?

Wait

I think I figured it out

Isn't it all here?

puzzling.stackexchange.com/feeds

That's it, I think

@ParclyTaxel not sure what you mean

0

Q: Another Rook's Tour of the Chessboard

Place numbers 1 to 64 in the cells of this 8 x 8 board in such a way that consecutive numbers occupy neighboring cells (either vertically or horizontally). Shaded cells must be occupied by prime numbers.

mathematics graph-theory primes

0

Q: An Elementary Magnum Opus

The image below is modified from a part of an absurdly high-resolution "magnum opus" picture. Based on the magnum opus's contents, answer the following questions: What is the meaning of the black line near the bottom-left corner of the image below? What do the box colours signify? Within the mag...

knowledge enigmatic-puzzle visual

AncientSwordRage

@ParclyTaxel not all the possible feeds are in here?

I think I found what I needed, but I'm trying to confirm lol

1:49 PM

Now to wait and see :)

Hooked it up to the discord to provide new posts for main and meta, similar to how Sphinx does here

Except now we get two separate channels for them

2:10 PM

My next puzzle might involve data (if I can figure out something that wouldn't change over time (yay math!), but do you need a specific reputation before you can access it? If so that would prevent me from writing it.

@AncientSwordRage Often downvotes come in once a puzzle's solution has been revealed. This one is always the one I think of - it acquired quite a high upvote total all the while people were excited by the mystery, then when the solution was revealed there was a big outpouring of disappointment and/or disgust...

I also find that niche pop culture tends to get downvoted, as it's not as accessible as many other areas of knowledge. Every time I've posted a Pokémon-themed puzzle, for example (which is FAR from niche, being one of the biggest-grossing franchises of all time) I end up with downvotes. In fact, saying that, almost every single one of my puzzles ends up with at least one downvote and on many of those occasions I'm left scratching my head why!

@Tacoタコス My advice: Don't take it personally. Also the best-received riddles are those which are not too niche. Riddles in general tend to be well received when they clue something everyone can relate to - pop culture divides the crowd! :)

@Stiv I wasn't offended to be honest; over time I've learned that people either will or won't like a puzzle. My lowest voted puzzles are certainly more niche than my top voted puzzles, so I expected it to perform somewhat poorly, though I didn't expect to achieve a negative score lol

I honestly take it a tad personally when it's an answer I put tons of effort into, but even then it depends on the context. For example, I fear the linked answer here is downvoted likely due to the fact that it's a partial answer that doesn't fully relate to the content.

However, I wouldn't post an answer that didn't at least attempt to answer the puzzle, which, I did, very thoroughly too I might add. I even ran a few algorithms over the puzzle to try and confirm and deny suspicions.

Ultimately, I'm starting to think that puzzle is in the realm of "guess what I'm thinking", but that's ultimately hard to prove without a solid answer.

2:45 PM

I notice you leave a lot of comments asking for people to explain downvotes... while that's technically allowed, doing it all the time is a bit much.

60

Q: Why isn't providing feedback mandatory on downvotes, and why are ideas suggesting such negatively received?

Sometimes my post receives downvotes with no explanation on what I've done wrong. Even worse, sometimes I just get snarky comments! It seems like this is especially bad for new users, who are made to feel unwelcome by veteran users. Stack Exchange's rules can be difficult to grasp, especially for...

support comments down-votes faq-proposed

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv I can sort of understand

But I personally wouldn't have called that (or Pokemon niche)

Well, you might not think it niche if you've been exposed to it yourself, but to be fair the 2009 movie was an 18-rating (rated R, for the American contingent), the 2019 TV series was a single 9-episode run, and the original comic isn't what first jumps to mind when people think of DC Comics creations. Most people know Batman or Superman from one of their many vehicles - would you really put Watchmen in that same category? (Anyway, it's all relative - not looking for an argument!)

(Unless of course anyone DOES diss Pokémon! ;-))

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv I think if I was categorising influential comics, I would do

As someone completely uninterested in comics and MCU movies (And DCU movies) I've heard of the watchmen.

So likely not niche.

'Niche' doesn't necessarily mean nobody's ever heard of it; it's more about how popular it is relative to other things. If you'd never heard of it, then that's even less than niche! :)

To answer the original puzzle that generated this thread you would have to have specifically watched that film/series. It has generated very few cultural references that reach the disinterested. Whereas even somebody who had no interest in Batman would know certain information about it - the da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na theme tune, a reference to 'Joker', that his sidekick is Robin - it's much more in the public consciousness.

3:33 PM

Should we create a Bathhouse tag just so we can ignore it?

It would be inappropriate to create such a tag for a specific user's puzzles; akin to making a [sergeant-sequence] tag for any of Stiv's puzzles which use the character. "theme" tags are generally restricted to wide-ranging topics, and there isn't anything else that ties those puzzles together (besides the quality, but a tag for that would be inappropriate as well)

My favourite tag was the [some-genius] tag on DIY which was unfortunately burned.

@bobble (Also, not all are bad)

Used to describe the person who's work you're now repairing.

@bobble Even the not bad ones are poorly written and use ridiculous nomenclature to make the puzzle difficult to parse.

@bobble Oh I concur it isn't necessary and that I do it a lot, but I'll always ask in a comment when it happens because I believe in self improvement to a high degree. If I never get the requested feedback, or even if the feedback is simply "I don't like it.", that's fine too. However, if it's something like my formatting or word choice, I can easily change those so I prefer to ask.

3:47 PM

Out of 18 questions, there are 5 with accepted answers - That's a smell to me. They could be very difficult, which fine, but more likely it's a poorly defined puzzle.

@Tacoタコス I'm slow on the downvotes. It rather handle most issues through moderation and editting

The Death of Meta Tags

Jeff Atwood on August 07, 2010

There are a few tags on Stack Overflow that have bugged me for a long time. Namely: subjective best-practices beginner But I could never quite articulate what, exactly, was wrong with these tags. It’s been bothering me more and more as time goes on. So much so, that about two months ago, I was compelled…

I'm faster on close votes than I am on downvotes.

@ChrisCudmore I don't give them often for this reason.

bobble was pointing out that I request feedback surrounding downvotes a lot.

While I realize the feedback is not required, I am free to request it, just as the users giving downvotes are free to ignore my request. :)

But, if I don't know why you downvoted, then how can I improve my content?

I'd rather ask, even if it gets ignored, it makes me feel like I'm demonstrating that I prefer to improve my content.

Which is a plus in my mind.

The problem is that there are two kinds of users who ask for the reason for downvotes: those who want to whine about how the downvote is unfair, and those who genuinely want feedback. And there are more of the first than the second.

You fall into the second category, of course. But the first is why the behavior tends to be discouraged.

And... asking can be pretty useless, anyways. Most people don't check up on Qs they downvoted

Ugh, I'm not explaining this well, and I have to run to a class. Sorry!

4:15 PM

Take a look at this question and the apparently correct answer:

0

Q: 100 100 into 200

How do you make this into 200 only using 1 straight line?

The problem here is that the puzzle depends on interpreting a homophone correctly, but the puzzle is spelled out unambiguously in latin characters.

Thus, leaving no room for the ambiguity necessary for the puzzle to work. Sometimes, a puzzle is just "Not Suitable for Text-based delivery"

AncientSwordRage

@bobble I think you explained it perfectly

@ChrisCudmore agreed

I don't think it's off topic, necessarily, but it's not good either

Yes, that's the problem.

If the attribution is solved, it fits the scope of the site, but it doesn't work here.

It's becoming the latest example of exactly what we were talking about earlier - a question which once an answer is accepted brings the downvotes.

AncientSwordRage

4:31 PM

@Stiv I think this time deservedly (that is definitely subjective though)

I left a comment on the question -- let me know what you think.

Hm. How do you add a stroke to something in oral delivery?

Another problem with the puzzle is that you don't need to add any strokes. You already have 'two hundreds', which equals 200. 'Too hundred' does not 'equal' 200 in any way other than as a homophone - it's a terrible intended answer to a poorly conceived question.

5:00 PM

@MOehm The delivery I saw was on video - Hand them the piece of paper with "100 100" written on it, and then say "add one stroke to make this soundex(200)"

AncientSwordRage

@BeastlyGerbil too quick!

Lol

Too easy

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス that too

Aha. Anyway, it's just a cheap bar trick. (I reckon the piece of paper was a beer mat.)

Still fun :)

AncientSwordRage

5:03 PM

I couldn't find a sweet spot between obscure enough to be difficult and obvious enough to not be unfair

@AncientSwordRage would lateral-thinking apply?

@bobble I don't think so

It's straight forward binary

With the computer-science tag anyways

The lateral-thinking would be to use binary in the first place

Without it though I'd say yes

@bobble I'd concur if the computer-science tag wasn't there

That tells you to think of it from a computer science aspect

We have a fundamentally different understanding of tags

5:05 PM

Which binary will come to mind quick with when working with 1s and 0s

Do we?

Lateral thinking means you have to think outside of the box of given information

Binary is within the box

So lateral thinking doesn't apply

Maybe I'm not tracking though lol

I'm open minded, I just don't see it; perhaps why you think it applies would help me understand

Also consider that the entire SE network is heavily biased towards tech people.

Tags aren't supposed to give information. I understand that people use them that way here, but the intent is for tags to be simple classifiers, and for all information to be contained in the question

^ from that aspect yes

It would apply

2

Q: How does 100 1000 becomes 200?

Turn these characters into 200: 100 1000 Using only one bit of information.

knowledge computer-science

So I think my line is blurred a bit lol

5:08 PM

@bobble That's a good point! @Tacoタコス using the acrostic tag in her relationship puzzle was a huge hint.

[computer-science] could be seen as a hint for what kind of lateral thinking should be applied, but the puzzle itself requires lateral thinking nonetheless

AncientSwordRage

@bobble gotcha

I'd defer to the OP in this and similar cases, though. It's not clear-cut.

And does it matter in the short bar trick type puzzles?

AncientSwordRage

@bobble without tags, it's definitely needed

5:10 PM

@ChrisCudmore I feel as if I'm missing the necessary context to comprehend this statement

I think that should be taken into consideration with my meta post about tags

But then, perhaps take my ideas with a grain of salt - I tend to participate in Qs where tagging is very clear-cut, grid-deductions and the like

In the early days, I was a hardass about review queues. I resented the "Skip" button on the queues. and argued on meta for it's removal.

In my mind, if you couldn't click "Looks Ok" then the question needed editing, and you should do it.

People are free to be unsure about what to do, though. If you don't know what to do it's okay to let someone else do it.

I'm much more relaxed about the skip button now. On DIY, I use it on about half of the queues,

Mostly because 1) the topic doesn't interest me at all; or 2) I don't have enough knowledge to evaluate the question/answer.

5:16 PM

@ChrisCudmore really?

Never thought others would see it that way lol

AncientSwordRage

@ChrisCudmore point 2 is the perfect reason for it

I prefer reviewers to skip if they don't know what to do.

I relate this, because @bobble, @Tacoタコス have really stepped up lately, with a lot of rigour to their thinking. But - remember - don't sweat the small stuff. We're volunteers, and purportedly here for fun...

And I recommend you both in the next round of mod elections.

A more niche case is a moderator - since everything they do is binding, a mod might want to e.g. go through the Close Vote queue and only deal with the really egregious stuff, Skipping the rest for the community to deal with

@ChrisCudmore Oh I concur lol I disappeared for a while though, work, family, covid, etc.

5:18 PM

Sometimes good enough is good enough

@AncientSwordRage well I knew the answer within maybe 2 seconds, I just had to check what 200 was in binary and write up the answer :P maybe a few too many hints there lol

Oh, I do not plan to stand for election. I'm far too emotionally unstable/immature for that kind of responsibility.

@bobble I'm 53 and feel the same way.

@bobble you don't seem it lol

There have been a parade of incidents which remind me of that, and a new one passes by every so often.

5:21 PM

I ran for mod on Arqade recently, went through quite a bit of effort to improve my posture as a candidate during the election too. Went from I think 3 candidate score to a score of 10 or 12 during the course of the election; learned a lot from it.

I wouldn’t stand now just because I have a habit of disappearing for lengthy period of times

@BeastlyGerbil That's why I haven't ran for puzzling

That's a good reason

Which I think a lot of people have the same problem :P

I'm hoping that I'm actually back this time lol

5:22 PM

How many positions are there?

And am also about to start uni so who knows what’ll happen with that

@ChrisCudmore when/if we have an election, the number of open positions will be determined by exactly one thing, which is how many positions the mod team feels is necessary

Puzzling isn’t looking for more moderators right now anyway right?

As far as I know, we've enough active mods that everything chugs smoothly. But, for example, if a mod had life events which made them need to step down, we might have an election for a replacement.

Christ. Finally found the hyperlink to meta. It's the Feedback link at the bottom.

5:25 PM

There are two other ways: "?" topbar dropdown, and SE logo topbar dropdown

Though people do worry about discoverability: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/270566/…

I usually click on the hot meta question and then click on the logo to get there which isn’t great

And that’s with knowledge it exists

9

A: How do users navigate to Meta?

Putting newbie hat. OK, suppose I'm a user with low rep (usually new users have low rep) and faced a problem with the site. I need help. I look on the top bar: Great, there is a question mark, let's click it: Now I can navigate happily to either the Help Center, or the Meta of the ...

@BeastlyGerbil Sometimes that gets you to the general meta, not the site specific one.

Very true if there’s not a site specific meta question trending

AncientSwordRage

5:49 PM

I've just gotten 6 yearling badges for the same site today...

@BeastlyGerbil I use the dropdown from the SE icon, but it's not that intuitive

@AncientSwordRage for the same site? I’ve seen bugs of lots of yearling badges all at once across various sites but never for the same site

@BeastlyGerbil lol @AncientSwordRage is secretly a time traveling ferret

@AncientSwordRage did you ever join the Discord?

Why do we need a discord?

We don't need a discord

:)

But it exists if anyone cares to join it

6:00 PM

Let me rephrase:

What functionality would a discord provide that is lacking from the current setup?

Images in chat...

That's about it.

Plenty TBH

1 sec

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス nah I'm in too many discords right now already

Stackexchange chat I can handle

Embedded images, GIFs (from multiple sources, inline), embedded music (Spotify, not just YT), voice chat, screensharing, and more

However

There is a major drawback

Most SE users don't even know we have a local chat

They don't really look for one either

So

They're not likely to look for a Discord either

So, it's really just for those who are like me and constantly have Discord open anyways

It's already got (I think) 5 members from PSE (to include Mithical); but, it doesn't see a lot of traffic.

Remember, the purpose of the site is the Q&A site. A small portion of users enter chat, and another small subset goes to meta. Why fragment it more?

I'm a member of SO's meta server, and Arqade's general server

AncientSwordRage

6:05 PM

C4 hint: "Female singer" is not a unit

@ChrisCudmore That's how a lot of sites and their users feel; as such, I don't pressure, I just know we were talking about it yesterday (I brought it up), and created one (I have an automated application to do it, so took 10 seconds), and couldn't remember if @AncientSwordRage wanted to join or did or not.

I think the servers available are for a select few members from each community that just want additional ways to keep in touch, which is always nice

Why not a facebook group? And a usenet channel as well?

I don't use FB, so there's that lol

And a listserv!

I mean, I get your point lol

AncientSwordRage

6:07 PM

I'll just post my old ICQ number... 😜

I killed FB a year ago and haven't looked back

AncientSwordRage

@ChrisCudmore still seems to be running for me...

@ChrisCudmore been about 5 years for me

I was still active duty, so at least that long

Who'd you serve with?

USMC

6:09 PM

Canadian Infantry.

Oh noice

Master Corporal.

Got a few friends I trade stocks with that served in the Canadian Infantry

@ChrisCudmore not familiar with the ranking system in Canadian branches, but I was E5 (Sergeant) when I got out.

Only reason I didn't re-enlist was that I started doing software development for civilian companies and they pay soooo much more lol

private corporal, master corporal, sergeant, warrant officer MWO (CSM), Chief W O (RSM)

Oh wow, that's a short COC lol

6:12 PM

Master corporal is a Corporal who took the sergeants course -- Ends up being Section Commander

Then there's the officers --

We had E1 - E9, O1 - O10, W1 - CWO5

@ChrisCudmore Do Canadian ranks separate office and field grade officers?

I presume so with Warrant Officer in your list, but your last message seems to imply that, that was an enlisted rank

scratches head

lol

We have 7 Enlisted, Plus the Recruit, and Senior Sergeants major

Warrant officer in US is totally different.

Makes sense lol

Think Navy PO's instead

Senior sergeants

Ah, okay 👌 lol

6:15 PM

We don't have the US concept of WO's at all.

Navy ranks always confused me, but I'm trackin' now at least lol

Yeah, so thing Master Sergeant and Chief Sergeant.

Old men with perfect drill and a voice that makes you quiver.

open.spotify.com/track/…

^ in a heavy metal mood now lol

@ChrisCudmore sometimes I miss cadence lol

Had a friend that did cadence with seven nation army once; gave me chills lol

6:42 PM

There' something special about the entire company's right foot hitting the parade square at exactly the same time.

Canadian Drill tends to be louder than American as we lift the thigh parallel to the ground and bang that leg down.

Royal Canadian Army Cadets Drill - Attention

That's a cadet, who are teenagers, but it's a good demo of the movement.

Not aggressive enough, but the movements are clear.

2 hours later…

9:10 PM

Oh yeah, that's highly accentuated. Ours is more of a snap:

Well damn, can't find any videos of just the position of attention lol

I mean, the Army's is close, but ours is tighter and more deliberate than the demonstrator in this video:

Position of Attention

Off to Fortnite land for a bit before either CoD or Halo, not sure which tonight

Might even be Warframe, not sure yet

9:38 PM

0

Q: How to solve the syllogism problem

Two statements are given below followed by two conclusions, I and II. You have to consider the statements to be true even if they seem to be at variance from commonly known facts. You have to choose which of the given conclusions, if any, follow(s) only from the given statements. Statements: A. ...

logical-deduction puzzle-creation

9:54 PM

user image

🤣

AncientSwordRage

I'm trying to figure out if my C4 is hard, bad or people are just busy

AncientSwordRage

10:11 PM

@BeastlyGerbil at one point I toyed with the idea of making the characters "百千" but I don't know Chinese,and it would have been bad if I'd misused those characters

10:29 PM

I definitely wouldn’t have got it then :P

AncientSwordRage

10:46 PM

@BeastlyGerbil yeah a step too far perhaps

@Tacoタコス I can't prove anything, but I mentioned dyscalculia 3 days prior to that question you just answered

The only thing I've definitively learned after trying to solve the C4 is the difference between a tent dress, a caftan and a muu-muu

I was trying to make DAMEISELE fit because it's an old French precursor to "demoiselle", and is a nine-letter word for "female", but I couldn't make the wordplay work

and here, poor fool, with all my obscure fashion lore, i stand no wiser than before...

11:46 PM

my theory is that tent-dress is not a unit and "dress back" clues a final S for a plural answer ("strings" being the def)

mostly tent could be something like YUR(-t) or TEPE(-e) or maybe simply TEN(-t)

Ahhh, interesting :D

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Sep '2124

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