The Sphinx's Lair

Anonymus 25

12:43 AM

@AncientSwordRage whispers PSE D&D Chatroom (I've been watching)

Prince North Læraðr

1:17 AM

@Anonymus25 That's... a little creepy. I know it's public, but it's still a bit weird

AncientSwordRage

@Anonymus25 that's really really creepy. Why would you say that?

AncientSwordRage

1:46 AM

That's not a hypothetical by the way, I'm genuinely interested in what postive reaction you might have been expecting? Because if you didn't want a positive reaction that's an issue

Avi

How do you make holy water? You boil the hell out of it.

Prince North Læraðr

1:59 AM

Har har

AncientSwordRage

Regardless of intent, @Anonymus25 given I'm not the only chat user who's mentioned they found your comment creepy, I'd like to ask you to stop writing comments like that please

Avi

creepily watches people who are disturbed by creepy things

creepy thing people fall over, creepily

Avi: shocked

falls over also

but uh yeah

that comment was somewhat weird? (edit: at least, didn't really fit in this conversation)

Anonymus 25

2:31 AM

@AncientSwordRage I didn't mean it to be creepy

I'm sorry if you found it that way

Avi

It's more the uh

"I've been watching" that can make almost any sentence creepy

AncientSwordRage

@Anonymus25 that's good to know, thanks for taking the time to explain

Avi

Closeness unsought
Run-down clothing
Excessive lip-licking
Eerie laughter
Peculiar smiles
Yucky breath

Touching
Handshakes that go on too long
"I've been watching"
Night prowling
Greasy hair
Steering conversations to awkward topics

AncientSwordRage

@Avi and along with that, whispers, in that context, makes it sound like you're trying to imply you know stuff nobody else does

Avi

oh, you're right

I took that to imply he was whispering the following text

not that low whispers are any less creepy

unless it's a secret

or someone is sleeping and you don't want to wake them up

Jafe

5:35 AM

secret agents are MOLES, russian weaponry is the AK, and hawaii is abbreviated HI

both MAKOLESHI and MOLAKESHI sound a little japanese

don't fail me now google

M Oehm

And? (I think I fed that idea into onelook.com yesterday and it didn't turn up anything useful.)

Jafe

yeah google ya failed me

Jafe

5:49 AM

kawanishi makes fighter planes and ends in HI but not seeing how the rest would fit

(also fighter planes != weapons)

M Oehm

Yeah, but I worked from the same idea when trying to fir MIG in as Russion weaponry. AK seems to make more "Japanese" sounding words anyway.

Jafe

yeah

Jafe

6:12 AM

makibishi has MIB (men in black) for "secret agents" in possession of AK, then there's IS for some reason, plus HI for hawaii

maybe are = IS? like "the beatles are a band" vs "the beatles is a band"

M Oehm

Oh, good find. IS and ARE as forms of to be are related, but MIB is doesn't sound right.

Jafe

yeah, plus it's spread out in the clue... "secret agents [bunch of other stuff] are"

M Oehm

Still, the "are" is there and it isn't strictly needed. (But neither is "providing".)

Perhaps the "spies" are just MI (military intelligence). But then we have a surplus BIS.

Anonymus 25

I want to make CONCEALED work, like Con "agents"

msh210

6:40 AM

@Jafe I bet this is it

AncientSwordRage

7:57 AM

@Jafe that's got to be it

@Jafe I think the charades part checks out just fine

@Anonymus25 here's what I have for CON in the lookup table I use:

   con: Conservative
   con: against
   con: party
   con: politician
   con: study
   con: swindle
   con: trick
   con: with

Stevo

con?

AncientSwordRage

@Stevo it's what anon was asking about

Stevo

starts scrolling up

Stiv

8:22 AM

@Jafe This was indeed my intention. I used ARE=IS just directly, which I realise goes against the tone of the surface. Not the best, I realise, but I'm glad you've managed to put it to bed in the end...

'Providing' is the link between wordplay and def

Jafe

8:39 AM

yay

CCCC: Seahawks quarterback attracted to beautiful woman who achieved fame as actress (and singer, MC, graphic artist, ...) (6)

@AncientSwordRage criminal for con is also pretty common

Anonymus 25

8:55 AM

@AncientSwordRage Thanks! I know the C4 has changed already, but good to know! :)

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv I enjoyed it

msh210

9:58 AM

@Jafe That's there already. Fourth on the list. (I kid.)

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 how did I miss that...? :p

Jafe

10:31 AM

hehe

AncientSwordRage

10:49 AM

@Jafe I'm currently stumped

AncientSwordRage

11:12 AM

Which is to say, this reads as thought it should be easy, but actually seems harder than that... I like it

Jafe

1 tab open searching for seahawks quarterbacks, 1 for graphic artists, and 17 for beautiful women

AncientSwordRage

My searches have only brought up WARHOL and WILSON

Jafe

11 clues still to write for friday... i am not making good progress

M Oehm

11:38 AM

MC, graphic artist, ho, ho!

@Jafe It's ESCHER = (SE)ahawks< + CHER

Jafe

yep :)

M Oehm

I've got to admit I was a baffled as Ancient at first.

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm Face meet palm, palm meet face

M Oehm

(I'll leave the 17 tabs open. :))

Jafe

hehe

Stiv

11:44 AM

Oh, that's really nice - I like that misdirection a lot!

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv same

Jafe

hehe thanks

AncientSwordRage

is it 'Seahawks Quarterback" -> '(SE)ahawks<' because SE is a quarter of, let me check... SE AH AW KS ?

Jafe

yeah

AncientSwordRage

because quarter can already mean SE, as in the combination of cardinal points (NE, NW, SE, SW)

Jafe

11:47 AM

huh, didn't think of that!

AncientSwordRage

I had written them all out backwards trying to match it to a singer WS would have wrapped WilsoN, leaving me with ISLO, which ... did not help

Jafe

MC fitting into that list was a happy coincidence, i didn't remember escher's first name when i first made the clue

would have worked fine without it but this is better :)

AncientSwordRage

@Jafe so much better

M Oehm

Yes, that was the cherry on the cake. It also was what made the penny drop.

Taco タコス

12:10 PM

I thought my chess puzzle would be better :( oh well

M Oehm

CCCC: Trick, irritate and swindle in France with rotated work of graphic artist (6, 3, 7)

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス ???

Taco タコス

@AncientSwordRage this puzzle; I thought it would do better. Perhaps it's a bit niche, or maybe the story overdid it? Not sure, trying to figure out what I did wrong there so I can improve future puzzles.

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm Clearly (tm) it's LUCIAN.K A.K.A LEKROW

@Tacoタコス Oh yeah, maybe the story? I haven't had much time to look at main site puzzles, and the story looked like it might take my focus from work to much

Le WORK< fitted to well, but I don't honestly think it's that

in fact 'in france' doesn't even clue 'le' (:

Taco タコス

12:27 PM

@AncientSwordRage might clue to a word that means "tick, irritate, and swindle" in French, and is still a valid word in English when paired to the right side?

Jafe

i think it's "in france, with" rotated

Stiv

@MOehm CONVEX AND CONCAVE = CON+VEX+AND+CON+AVEC<

Jafe

for something like clariCE VA<n blarghh

Taco タコス

@Stiv leave it to Stiv lol

Jafe

aaa i was way off!

nice

CAVE isn't AVEC backwards, though?

Stiv

12:30 PM

Bah, sorry I meant (C)AVE(-c) or something like that

Jafe

oh yeah rotated that way

Stiv

The letters have been cycled

Jafe

i see now

Stiv

Is there a shorthand for that?

M Oehm

@Stiv Yes!

AncientSwordRage

12:32 PM

@Stiv crosswordunclued.com/2009/12/letter-shifting.html

Jafe

i use (C<)AVE(<c) although that applies to letter movement in general i suppose

AncientSwordRage

it would be AVE{C} -> {C}AVE

Stiv

Ooh, squiggly brackets

M Oehm

AVEC is cycled, which leads to the rather awkward "rotated", but I'd rather have a so-so surface reading than being reprimanded by the Indirect Anagram Police.

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv (braces)

Stiv

12:33 PM

Ooh, squiggly braces

M Oehm

I first pondered using "last quarter <something>", but that was even more awkward.

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm 'with cycling work'?

M Oehm

Yes, but what is a "cycling work"? I also considered "circulated", but that doesn't quite mean rolled / rotated / cycled, I think.

AncientSwordRage

the unclued blog I linked gives some ideas

@MOehm recycling? Cyclical?

trying to get across the idea that all the 'X' is on a conveyer belt that just runs round and round in a loop

M Oehm

To me, "recycling" indicates an anagram.

AncientSwordRage

12:37 PM

'loopy'?

@MOehm same, I was unsure, hence the ?

loopy also looks like an anagrind, but it possibly closer

Stiv

CCCC: 'Odd Henry' - old, drunk man who enthusiastically tells you, "It's Christmas!" (5,6)

user21820

12:49 PM

in Basic Mathematics, yesterday, by user21820

The shortest Python-3 function matching your data seems to be "lambda a,b,c:c+3-b%2". It is almost surely not the 'official answer', which would only demonstrate that such puzzles are plain stupid.

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv (NODDY HOLDER)*

Taco タコス

1:01 PM

Jeez lol

Just about every time I come in and see a new C4, it's already solved haha

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス I'm going to stop pinning them 😅

and I've just removed the residual stars from me pining then unpinning

@Tacoタコス I re-read your question

I really like it

Taco タコス

@AncientSwordRage lol it does get hard to keep up 🤣

I'm sitting here trying to learn how to solve them and others are solving them so fast

AncientSwordRage

It's just a lot to process at once, and both the chess context and the extra hinted are woven into the story

Taco タコス

@AncientSwordRage oh, thank you! It was a bit time consuming to set up, so that's much appreciated lol

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス yeah it's the weaving in that makes it tricky to read the question before you can even get to solving

Taco タコス

1:14 PM

@AncientSwordRage I originally wanted to do just a grid with no story, just some cryptic information on how to solve it, but that felt like I was doing too little; then I stepped it up to a chess puzzle that would've walled through the parity checks with the score sheet, but that felt like too much

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス sounds like you put a lot of effort in

I guess... let me rephrase and distil my feedback... Potential solvers will want to find out if this is the sort of puzzle they want to solve, before they attempt to do so. If finding that out is hard then they probably won't try to solve it, and won't know if it's a good puzzle or not

Stiv

1:48 PM

@AncientSwordRage Yes, indeed - and I'm not surprised it's you who found it :) I'm interested to know how many non-UK-based folks here might already be aware of who he is... (All my American friends in the past, when I've talked about 'Christmas songs' they've said 'You mean Christmas carols?' and apparently 'the Christmas song' is almost as British as the pub quiz...)

AncientSwordRage

@RajorshiKoyal if you have a question, please ask on the main site (if it is appropriate) and give the source for the puzzle

Jafe

@Stiv not me

Stiv

Will this be your first Australian Christmas, Jafe? Do you know if they're into the whole 'Christmas pop song' thing over there?

Jafe

yeah first christmas here... no idea, but i've already seen two huge christmas trees put up 2 months in advance so at least it's safe to say that christmas itself is pretty big here

just missed it actually, arrived the 29th last december

Stiv

We've had mince pies in the shops for a month now

Jafe

2:04 PM

halloween's not a big thing in the uk?

Stiv

Oh, the shops are full of Halloween stuff too - it runs concurrently

Jafe

ah

Stiv

Not as big as in the States, certainly, and you wouldn't catch anyone over here dressed up as a princess or a superhero - it's monsters only, pretty much

(Vampire princess? Yes. Zombie superhero? Absolutely...)

Jafe

hehe

bobble

@RajorshiKoyal you have been told repeatedly that chat is not your personal tutoring service.

Stiv

2:18 PM

Re the latest CCCC, this is who I'm talking about. (The point in question comes right at the end and is almost mandatory to replicate at some point over the Christmas season, most often while alcohol-fuelled...)

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv I'm glad you said 'almost' ;)

Stiv

It's close to a British Christmas tradition... up there with the Queen's Speech, Christmas crackers, and arguing about Brussels sprouts...

M Oehm

2:44 PM

And charity hit singles?

Sphinx

3:05 PM

0

Q: Optimal next move in a chess game?

White to move. What is the optimal play?

chess

AncientSwordRage

Will set a C4 later

Stiv

@MOehm Those too, of course. No ideas on that one yet? :)

M Oehm

My one idea on that one was that the title could be an odd, or even obscure, reference to this. That hasn't led me anywhere, though. :)

Stiv

3:20 PM

Oh, haha - that rhyme is entirely unintentional. I would recommend avoiding going any further down that route!

M Oehm

Yeah. It looked like a Spoonerism without a spoon.

Taco タコス

3:31 PM

@Stiv can you tell me what visual clues are in those images? I'm not complaining, I'm just curious because I'm not seeing them lol

M Oehm

Well, there are just words in the table, no images.

I mean, everybody knows what Harry Belafonte looks like.

Stiv

@Tacoタコス Yup, sure :) (i) The juxtaposition of the emojis with the app heading 'Notes' is intended to conjure up the idea of musical notes, which is a nice touch; (ii) There are actually a few more rows of emojis hidden at the top of the page, very faintly behind the header, as the note is long enough for a scroll bar; these help add a few extra elements to the final sequence, providing confirmation.

@MOehm Sorry, ^this is a continuation of a conversation from a comment on a recently edited puzzle! :)

M Oehm

(Oh, that comment was about the notes app puzzle.)

Stiv

The Harry Belafonte remark made me laugh a lot as a result, as it is so wonderfully out of context :D

M Oehm

Yeah, sorry about that. My attention span is just one HTML page long, sometimes not even that.

Stiv

3:36 PM

No probs

Taco タコス

@Stiv oh neat; thanks!

Stiv

No worries - would have been a shame to lose those. Feel free to redo the grammar edits of course...

M Oehm

Speaking of the notes app: plinkety-plunk.

Sphinx

3:55 PM

0

Q: Find the hidden message in... this grid

(So I made this puzzle, and I wanted it to be fun rather than difficult! I hope it’s original enough) Given a 5x5 grid as input, here’s an algorithm: randomly select any 3x3 grid within the 5x5 grid randomly select a number add that number to all numbers within the 3x3 grid repeat for a random a...

cipher grid-deduction algorithm

M Oehm

4:46 PM

Okay, the penny may have dropped, but it was only the first step. Meanwhile, Jeremy has solved it properly.

Stiv

5:31 PM

@MOehm It was funny that my one and the other puzzle should both come out on the same day (within a few hours of each other) and both have a similar theme hidden at their core...!

M Oehm

5:46 PM

Yes, funny coincidence. Speaking of yours, I didn't know the actual song and tried to work backwards from the notes, which is a bit hard without the lengths. On reverse-engineering music website came up with "Satisfaction", though, which didn't quite fit, but I would have liked it, what with Mick Jagger being centre stage. (I guess the bottom was towards the mics.)

Sphinx

6:00 PM

0

Q: Music in Symbols

All songs can be written as a series of symbols referencing their changes in tone. Specifically, the first note of each song is denoted as "$*$", and every following symbol describes whether the pitch goes up ($\land$), down ($\lor$), or stays the same ($-$). For example, "Twinkle, Twinkle" would...

music

AncientSwordRage

6:33 PM

Just looking over my backlog of potential CCCCs... A significant amount are barely half finished 😔

M Oehm

You just need to finish one -- for the time being.

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm I found a few finished ones, and picked one

M Oehm

Sounds good.

AncientSwordRage

CCCC: Fixing a potion - in need of a firm quarter turn (10)

AncientSwordRage

7:05 PM

@MOehm there

AncientSwordRage

7:31 PM

There is absolutely no gap in my head between "this will be solved in 0.4 seconds" and "this will last days" and my prediction is almost always completely wrong

Taco タコス

7:48 PM

Pretty sure the first half is "BREW"

humn

I just commented opinionated on a puzzle.

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/112323/…

Just another bug under my rug.

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス 🙂

Taco タコス

@humn To be fair, I think the downvote may have come before the code was provided which meant it was just the individual answers.

With no explanation, people tend to downvote.

I didn't downvote, even with my review (albeit ill-informed review).

humn

@Tacoタコス , i didn't check that possibility. Thank you for future corrections.

Taco タコス

With the update the OP made, I upvoted though

humn

7:51 PM

@Tacoタコス , thank you again!

Taco タコス

@humn no problem lol it irks me too sometimes because I like to create code answers :)

humn

! I've seen many of them!

Signed, editor compulsive.

Taco タコス

@AncientSwordRage I keep trying to relate the second half to "ANGLE" just based on 90 degree turns being quarter turns, but I'm narrowing scope... Too much going on over here for me lol

Prolly for the best because I still don't know how to create a C4 so I'd have to pass the baton lol

humn

Ooops, @Tacoタコス, when i typed "I've seen many of them!" i should've typed "I've seen many of yours!"

Taco タコス

@humn lol I understood though :) thanks! sorry for the brevity this afternoon; having to multitask at the moment.

humn

7:58 PM

!

@Tacoタコス , More power to you.

Taco タコス

@humn ha, nope lol hurts my head :D

humn

@Mithical , watcher, teacher, cantor, you really here?

Mithical

*waves* Dropping in quickly before heading to sleep. How you doing?

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス we can teach you

Taco タコス

@AncientSwordRage I don't think solving one then learning as everyone waits for me is a good time to do that though lol

I'm still reading the very long post by Deusovi on the topic.

Good info, just a lot of info lol

AncientSwordRage

8:03 PM

@Tacoタコス yup

humn

@Mithical , pleasant dreams, good luck winding down. Thank you for all your drop ins!

. . . on a somewhat serious side, yesterday i surveyed un-accepted puzzles: Most of them are cipher and such.

Truly, i suspect that puzzling.stackex... could be a source of unbreakable ciphers.

(Made you think!)

(Steam is emitted from our ears. I'm thinking too. Also thinking that what i typed is already understood by those who would. Rhymin'.)

Taco タコス

Thinking about how to make this into a puzzle lol

Without overdoing it.

humn

@Tacoタコス , (rereading for a more useful reply; transforming discoveries into puzzles is what i most love)

Taco タコス

I mean, it looks fun, and I could certainly just scale it up, but that's likely too easy and wouldn't be fun, nor fair to the original post.

I want to put some form of twist on it, but I'm not sure what that is yet.

humn

8:19 PM

@Tacoタコス , care to spill some, possibly humble, approaches? They lead.

(still rereading and thinkinggggggg)

Taco タコス

Not sure I understand?

As in, what are some of my current thoughts?

humn

!

Taco タコス

Sorry, still multitasking unfortunately

humn

As it comes, indeed.

. . .

Taco タコス

@AncientSwordRage okay, new idea; the first half is clearly™ BREW, and perhaps the quarter turn means to rotate the letters 90 degrees? Likely to the right due to E and W becoming M and E respectively; just can't figure out B and R.

I can see B becoming OO, kind of.

But R has me stumped there.

So it's likely not it.

@humn so I'm still not understanding what you're asking there.

humn

8:30 PM

@Tacoタコス , i was just resounding that this room is on occasion a sandbox for puzzling ideas.

Do not forget: @humn stole unloaned puzzle books from libraries.

Taco タコス

Oh, okay lol

I don't mind sharing and collaborating; just haven't made it very far yet.

I'm prepping my laptop for a restart

humn

! Ain't that how it goes.

Taco タコス

@humn O_O

humn

@Tacoタコス , you are rippin'! More power!

Reduced instruction set computer

A reduced instruction set computer, or RISC (), is a computer with a small, highly optimized set of instructions, rather than the more specialized set often found in other types of architecture, such as in a complex instruction set computer (CISC). The main distinguishing feature of RISC architecture is that the instruction set is optimized with a large number of registers and a highly regular instruction pipeline, allowing a low number of clock cycles per instruction (CPI). Core features of a RISC philosophy are a load/store architecture, in which memory is accessed through specific instructions...

^ One of my next two puzzles will involve that. It has just one instruction: "copy" (misnamed "move") and solves a classic puzzle.

But the puzzle i'm hot to plop at the moment is about a different kind of calculus of infinitesimals, sure to buzz off most solvers.

Those solvers! You try outfoxing them out. You try everything.

Vintage Old 1970's Wisk Laundry Detergent Soap Ring around the collar commercial

►

Stevo

@Tacoタコス hey, I solved one… then my first c4…

humn

8:44 PM

!

AncientSwordRage

@Tacoタコス sadly that's not it

Sphinx

9:42 PM

0

Q: Is it possible to find a figure that can be divided in 3 equal parts of same size and form in 3 different ways?

Figure 1 is divided in 2 equal parts of same size and shape in 3 different ways Figure 2 is divided in 3 equal parts of same size and shape in 2 different ways Is it possible to find a figure that can be divided in 3 equal parts of same size and shape in 3 different ways?

geometry

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