The Sphinx's Lair

AncientSwordRage

12:07 AM

@Stevo accurate

Avi

12:40 AM

tf

we clearly just call it soda

...but I suppose it is wet? because h2o and all that fun stuff

Stevo

@Avi water is not wet.

Avi

no but the soda could be

if it had water mixed inside

Stevo

@Avi uh, idk

Avi

shrug

what else is "the wet drink" supposed to be

where did they even make up this data from

Gareth McCaughan

I think entirely from Randall Munroe's extremely active imagination. But the idea of it comes from the fact that there really have been academic studies of regional terms for carbonated beverages. For a not particularly academic one, see popvssoda.com .

Avi

12:46 AM

dude's imagination is stellar

also, that's a really cool data visualization

bobble

3:17 AM

@AncientSwordRage I have just done so.

Puzzling Meta

3:33 AM

1

Q: What to do with "What is the best method of scrambling a rubik's cube?"

The question in question is this one: What is the best method of scrambling a rubik's cube?. The gist of the question is this: ... what is the best, most random way, to scramble the solved cube? I voted to close it as opinion-based. In the Close Votes review, one reviewer agreed with me, but th...

msh210

3:49 AM

@GarethMcCaughan is it G (Greek) LAD (character, this is the weakest link in my chain) provided with DEN (hangout, joint) = GLADDEN (to give satisfaction)?

Prince North Læraðr

5:24 AM

Ooooh

Clever

msh210

6:24 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr eh. It's probably wrong. Besides the "lad" ≠ "character" issue, there's also the fact that "gladden" means "to give satisfaction to" and I think @GarethMcCaughan is too correct to use "to give satisfaction" for it.

(Not that I am, myself.)

msh210

6:40 AM

ooh it's EL (Greek, country code) EL (character, the letter L) provided with ELL (a joint) = ELELLEL, to give satisfaction to those who like pronouncing the letter L

2

Stevo

@msh210 ooh

Stevo

6:54 AM

wished there was a puzzle posted in the next few minutes...

Stiv

@Jafe hexomino once created a puzzle based off this exact map - was that in your mind when you linked this here? :)

27

Q: A Mainer Expression

+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+ | Box | Day | Files | Means | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+ | Love | Span | Objective | Pad | +--------------+--------------+----------...

enigmatic-puzzle

Jafe

7:41 AM

not consciously, but looks like i have already upvoted that question so i can't claim never having seen it...

Jafe

8:07 AM

claim to have never... oh well, grammaring is hard

msh210

10:39 AM

oh, of course. "provided with joint" = articulated = "spoke clearly" so this is a homophone clue #GreatC4PartialSolutions

AncientSwordRage

10:55 AM

'give satisfaction' can also mean to accept a duel

Gareth McCaughan

11:35 AM

My intended solution is neither GLADDEN nor ELELLEL. Sorry.

msh210

Dang, I was pretty sure about the latter.

Sphinx

2:06 PM

-1

Q: Splitting the Integers

For which n is it possible to split the integers 1, 2, 3, ..., n into two disjoint sets such that the product of the sum of the elements in one set and that of those in the other is a perfect square?

mathematics number-theory

AncientSwordRage

How do I get quinaplus to give me words that are (word_a)* in word_b

msh210

drat. I started composing a puzzle based on a list of names and was doing fine until I got to the 36th item on the list and it's such an odd name that I can't do anything with it for my puzzle

AncientSwordRage

2:29 PM

@msh210 oof

Sphinx

0

Q: Find a missing number in this 28x21 grid

355|066|677|855|677|081|044|855|355|062|216|677|216|855|224|044|034|046|051|677|355|264|044|046|044|351|886|043 043|044|886|357|886|352|225|357|043|222|993|001|233|968|046|225|062|041|351|886|043|227|359|233|855|357|677|046 359|216|255|045|255|968|233|045|359|264|678|238|506|222|062|233|222|066|0...

logical-deduction calculation-puzzle

Sphinx

3:21 PM

0

Q: How to solve the problem with linear arrangement with more than one variable?

Question: "There are six persons and each of them has a different degree-M.Tech,MBA,B.Tech,B.Com,MCA,B.Sc. They are sitting in a linear row from left to right, and each person faces either north or south,not necessarily in the same order. 1.Q has a B.Com degree and ,is facing north. 2.S is sittin...

logical-deduction enigmatic-puzzle visual lateral-thinking

bobble

4:50 PM

google.com/search?q=seating+arrangements+banking+exam+india

sigh

I have quite a few banking-exam questions socked away for moderation record purposes. If they would stop growing my notes that would be nice.

M Oehm

@GarethMcCaughan I'll have a go: GRATIFY = G (Greek) + RAT (character, "a person who spends much time in a specified place") + IF (provided) + Y (joint, e.g. of pipes)

Prince North Læraðr

5:14 PM

@msh210 That has to be it xD

Gareth McCaughan

6:12 PM

@MOehm Yup! Except that I intended GR "Greek" AT "character".

M Oehm

Well, two out of four parts of the wordplay isn't bad, is it? I like both GR and AT better, and now that I see it, it's rather obvious. Especially RAT felt a bit laboured.

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm how does AT clue Character?

M Oehm

The at sign (@) is a character.

AncientSwordRage

6:27 PM

Uhhh that feels obvious now ... steals it

msh210

7:01 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr ikr

M Oehm

7:25 PM

Speaking of laboured:

CCCC: Greek character and others mostly not so upset individually with cuts (3, 4, 5)

Avi

-1

Q: How to solve the problem with linear arrangement with more than one variable?

Question: There are six persons and each of them has a different degree-M.Tech,MBA,B.Tech,B.Com,MCA,B.Sc. They are sitting in a linear row from left to right, and each person faces either north or south,not necessarily in the same order. Q has a B.Com degree and ,is facing north. S is sitting s...

logical-deduction enigmatic-puzzle visual lateral-thinking

^ looks to me like most of the issues with readability/source declaration have been fixed

is there anything I'm missing or should I vote to reopen?

msh210

@MOehm ET A(L.) /WITH/ TON< OS<

cute

M Oehm

@msh210 Yes.

msh210

CCCC: Books composed of sea salt (7)

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 ATLASES*

msh210

7:36 PM

@AncientSwordRage indeed

Avi

O.o

nice

AncientSwordRage

CCCC: Lofty temples are supposedly better lit? (4,4)

msh210

7:54 PM

@AncientSwordRage heheheh high brow (better literature)

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 exactly

msh210

CCCC: An American state's hours and shifts (8)

Stiv

8:12 PM

@msh210 HONDURAS = HOURSAND*

msh210

@Stiv yep yep

Stiv

Eep, I'd better get thinking then!

Gareth McCaughan

9:46 PM

@Avi Nothing was missing, I guess, but the question was deleted because it was posted by one of many many sockpuppets of someone who keeps making sockpuppets to post questions like that one. (On account of having had their original account suspended because of repeated violations of PSE rules.)

Avi

10:04 PM

Oh, unfortunate

can you make an argument equivalent to Cantor's diagonalization argument if the "diagonal" directions didn't exist?

i.e., you can only go horizontal or vertical

not combinations of the two?

Gareth McCaughan

I'm not sure I understand the question. Can you say more about what you'd like this argument to prove?

Avi

According to Wikipedia, the argument proves that "there are infinite sets which cannot be put into one-to-one correspondence with the infinite set of natural numbers"

Gareth McCaughan

Indeed it does, but it sounds as if you're wanting something else besides that (because otherwise what's wrong with Cantor's original argument?). Maybe I'm misunderstanding?

Prince North Læraðr

Omg Cantor

Avi

nothing, I was just wondering

he proves that you can always create a new number

Gareth McCaughan

10:14 PM

I don't really see how something could be "equivalent" to the diagonal argument without actually involving, y'know, a diagonal :-).

Avi

by taking the diagonals

I was wondering if you could show that you could always create a new number without taking diagonals

but uh

@GarethMcCaughan this is a very good point

Prince North Læraðr

Infinityyyyyyyy

@GarethMcCaughan It's the perpendicular argument ;P

Cantor was the one that was in a mental asylum because people thought he was crazy right?

Gareth McCaughan

well, if you want to do a Cantor-like construction then your new number is going to need to differ from each of the previously given ones, so you need to do something with each row. And unless you have infinitely many (yea, uncountably many) possible digits, making it differ from each of those requires you to use infinitely many columns.

Prince North Læraðr

(Or maybe he was crazy and our math is based off of a lunatic)

Gareth McCaughan

I think he actually was crazy.

Prince North Læraðr

10:16 PM

HAHAHAHAHA

Gareth McCaughan

The mathematics is fine, though.

Prince North Læraðr

Ad hominem attack :P

"Math is bad because math was based off crazy dude"

To be fair, the discoveries he made were... quite unique. I'm not sure you could be normal and think up the stuff about infinities that he did.

Avi

Man just had an infinite number of problems... not sure what's the problem??

Gareth McCaughan

actually, it seems as if what he was hospitalized for was depression rather than anything it would be reasonable to describe as craziness.

Prince North Læraðr

Ah

Avi

10:19 PM

Apparently a lot of people didn't like him (because of his mathematical results)

Gareth McCaughan

yeah, Kronecker was particularly hostile.

Avi

oof

he died poor

Gareth McCaughan

Pure mathematics research isn't generally much of a pathway to wealth.

Avi

yeah...

feels bad though

Gareth McCaughan

Though some superstar professors at US universities are paid very well. And of course some other things mathematicians are often good at can be very lucrative.

Avi

10:23 PM

there's not really much reward for coming up with something new

at least, I'm not convinced

Gareth McCaughan

the reward is the satisfaction of knowing you did it, and the admiration of your peers.

Avi

satisfaction and admiration won't feed me

Prince North Læraðr

For me, math is just pain ;P

Avi

patents might but uh

it's somewhat expensive to file one and getting it just right might screw over the field

so then nobody will use it and I'll die poor

sad

Prince North Læraðr

laughs in music major

Avi

10:25 PM

at least you can do gigs

Gareth McCaughan

You can't patent pure mathematical discoveries, anyway.

Prince North Læraðr

@Avi laughs harder

Avi

not pure mathematics; it's more of a restructured neural network

but uh

Prince North Læraðr

laughs in music composition

Avi

not convinced it's even easy to make money off a patent like that

especially if you patent something for NNs

the major NN libraries won't include it, because it's patented

and they don't want to screw over end users probably

Prince North Læraðr

10:26 PM

What are you exactly trying to do?

Gareth McCaughan

having a patent will likely do you precisely zero good unless it turns out to be something someone with deep pockets really needs to use.

Avi

exactly

Prince North Læraðr

Aren't you a comp sci major Avi?

Gareth McCaughan

If you invent something that revolutionizes machine learning, you should write a paper, publish the code, and hope that your brilliance becomes widely recognized and people hire you for a nice fat salary.

Or else find something it's useful for that makes money more directly, and get rich with that while keeping your discovery secret, but that's likely to be difficult.

Avi

@PrinceNorthLæraðr doing masters in CS with focus on Intelligent Systems now

@GarethMcCaughan quite

Gareth McCaughan

10:30 PM

It turns out that turning brilliant inventions into money is generally pretty expensive and requires a lot of extra work beyond the brilliant invention.

Avi

yeah

practical vs theoretical makes a huge difference

although I've been getting better at practical lately

but like

I don't even have any idea where a more powerful ML could be simply applied to make profits

because, most of the low-hanging fruit is gone already

with vendor lock-in and stuff

@GarethMcCaughan this is the plan when I get to postdoc or professor or something

👍

If I die from lack of sleep midway then RIP

Gareth McCaughan

please do not die from lack of sleep

3

Avi

I will try my best not to

to be fair

Gareth McCaughan

the other option of course is to find other profitable things that use some of the same skills that enable you to invent things that revolutionize machine learning, and do the ML research in your spare time. E.g., the strongest open-source go-playing program was written by a guy who works for a hedge fund. (Well, strictly it's a prop trading firm, but same idea.) I have no idea whether he uses neural networks to help them trade effectively, though.

Avi

yes, but AI research is interesting to me

so I will continue to pursue that for the time being

one nice business idea that has absolutely nothing to do with ML/AI:

make it super easy to release 3 categories of information when you die: (a) Information that will be released publicly so that anyone can view it (b) Information that will be released to people who knew you, in general (c) Information specifically/individually addressed to those close to you

maybe add a link to a firm of lawyers if you need to write a will as well

but this is more like a lastgoodbyes.com or something

especially useful in the current harrowing times

Avi

10:42 PM

for the record, most of the interesting AI research is happening at AI-specific companies, finance companies, and universities

anyways uh

I have assignments to do - cheers

Sphinx

11:39 PM

0

Q: What five letters am I thinking of? (Simplified Jotto.)

1. Warmup "I'm thinking of five letters," I smiled. "Are they ... G, B, K, J, and N?" you asked. "No, none of those." "C, X, Q, A, and N?" I gulped. "Four of those." "K, I, Y, T, and M?" "One of those." "S, D, Z, I, and K?" "One of those. Now that's enough guessing; you have enough information to...

logical-deduction mastermind

AncientSwordRage

11:52 PM

@Avi I don't think the diagonals used in that theory as the sort that are excluded from taxicab/Manhattan space

You could just as easily define the diagonal as "the number made form the nth digit of the nth number"

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