The Sphinx's Lair

2:36 AM

0

My prefix is a language - rather recently designed My infix is a game - to exercise your mind My suffix is a journey - a trial to undertake My whole is all ready - proceed, a guess, to make

Sphinx

3:53 AM

0

Q: Could you find connection between them?

What's the connection between these images?

knowledge visual connections-puzzle

oAlt

5:16 AM

Hmm what could "swarm" be doing in the clue

Or every other component of the clue really hahah

"coming after" is the only obvious wordplay component and I can't parse the rest

Elision could have been used in the account name for surface purposes but I still have no leads afterward

Stiv

7:23 AM

@juicifer HORATIO = HO (slut) + RATIO, giving us the real name of the Cap'n Crunch mascot, Horatio Magellan Crunch!

oAlt

:00000

TIL ratio isn't only likes-outnumbering-likes, I never knew it could also be used for replies-outnumbering-likes/replies-outnumbering-retweets. I mean it makes sense, but I really thought before that likes-outnumbering-likes was the only meaning of ratio lol

Stiv

It was a new one on me too!

Jafe

same here, never would have gotten that... nice solve

Stiv

7:38 AM

I figured the secret lay in parsing the username with cryptic clue terminology. '4' was the 'for' suggesting 'Cap'n Crunch?' might be the definition - a google research frenzy ensued!

oAlt

Same here, except that I didn't do much research and I wish I had lol

I scanned the Cap n Crunch Wikipedia page and didn't find anything interesting at first, but I looked again now and Horatio was there after all lol

Jafe

for me twitter shows that tweet timestamped 1:30am on 1 July... juicifer posted the clue at 11:18pm the previous day

so either i need to fix my time zone config or we have evidence of the first ever time-travelling c4

3

i give both about a 50% chance of being right

Stiv

@Jafe I wouldn't be so sure of that:

Sep 9, 2017 at 11:37, by Sp3000

CCCC: Extremely popular director Burton enters the Underground with Apple device he captures in to produce comedy film (3, 3, 4, 7)

Jafe

that is certainly time travelling

(figured it out, tooltip timestamps here in chat are in UTC and even have a Z at the end to indicate that)

oAlt

8:17 AM

yeah

AncientSwordRage

8:42 AM

@oAlt I've only heard of it as a past tense verb, like "Oh wow, that C4 by ASR really got ratioed"

oAlt

(lol that example)

AncientSwordRage

> ASR... For the hundredth time that's an indirect anagram!

Puzzling Meta

1

Q: Monthly Topic Challenge #1: Restricted Title: xkcd 1xxx

This is the first installment of the Monthly Topic Challenges with topics suggested and voted on here. This fortnight's topic is "Restricted Title: xkcd 1xxx" (suggested by Lukas Rotter) and will span from the 1st of July to the 31st of July. During this period, we will compile the list of releva...

discussion topic-challenge

oAlt

@AncientSwordRage AKSDFJKD

Stiv

@PuzzlingMeta @LukasRotter Nice one :)

oAlt

8:51 AM

(hoping I'm not the only one who uses button mashes here lol)

ooh topic challenge once again

AncientSwordRage

9:21 AM

@oAlt FJAFJKLDSKF7JKFDJ!

Jafe

"how'd you get that 7 on the top row"

oAlt

Loll

Stiv

10:09 AM

Just found a bot on the site with a gold badge! I hope someone congratulated SmokeDetector at the time and made them feel a valued member of the community - we really don't want an AI uprising on our hands in the future...

Jafe

nice

pretty exclusive group too, only 8 users have that badge

AncientSwordRage

10:54 AM

@Jafe 👀

Sphinx

12:04 PM

0

Q: They're all OURS (GHI)

I'm looking for a two-word phrase. EAT (NOP) CON (JKL) NOW (TUV) NOW (TUV) CON (JKL) ICE (OPQ) EAR (HIJ) END (MNO) PIC (FGH) ALE (UVW) ALE (UVW) PIC (FG...

enigmatic-puzzle

juicifer

12:26 PM

@Stiv you got it, fam, no cap ;)

tbh I thought that would last a lot longer so kudos

@oAlt I think nowadays it's mostly likes:likes but I originally it was replies:likes (or replies:rts) and I couldn't come up with a succinct enough way to clue the more-likes type of ratio so I went for the original definition

Stiv

Still, 8 hours is pretty long by recent standards!

juicifer

this is true haha

Stiv

CCCC: Stressed with friend? No sense in that. (In a way, that's always true...) (14)

oAlt

@juicifer ooh, TIL

msh210

1:21 PM

@Stiv taut (O logic) ally

Sphinx

1

Q: Never Seen Star Wars

This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #1: Restricted Title: xkcd 1xxx Shortly after Cueball dodged a bullet, he receives an e-mail from Megan. To his misfortune, the topic is once again Star Wars... Hi Cueball! I know you love puzzles and I just got word you're also a Star Wars fan...

knowledge enigmatic-puzzle visual

oAlt

1:42 PM

@Stiv Nice wordplay :00

Lukas Rotter

@Stiv Better late than never I guess :P

Stiv

2:34 PM

@msh210 Yes it is!

And so now a question... I've been doing another challenge in my CCCC construction, which this last clue finally concludes. So (i) What has my challenge been? and (ii) Can you pinpoint the first clue in the series?

@oAlt (And thanks!)

Sphinx

-2

Q: What's the answer to this iq question

Had a good thing about this question and haven't been able to come up with an answer. Any ideas?

mathematics

Jafe

3:02 PM

ooh, interesting

oAlt

Ikr

@Stiv were there regular clues in between the themed clues, or do you prefer to not comment on that? :P

Stiv

@oAlt Happy to confirm that I haven't interrupted the series at all - it's a continuous streak going back to a particular start point.

oAlt

Ooh

Jafe

the last 10 are SEMTEX, HANDSOME, STURGEON, ACNE, COPENHAGEN, HIP FLASK, CIRCUMCISION, PELVIS, CHARIOTS OF FIRE,TAUTOLOGICALLY

oAlt

3:20 PM

Oh, I think I see it.

:000

Now to find the first clue

Oh my gosh.. the list goes farther back than I thought

Stiv.. don't tell me we have to go this far back..

Stiv

Maybe...

I really hope you're using the search tool and not scrolling manually...

oAlt

Oh my gosh, we actually have to. Oh my fricking– the last 118 clues you did had answers which each had an atomic symbol in their middle. Amazing.

Nov 17, 2021 at 17:40, by Stiv

CCCC: Monstrous dog spotted in North Russia (7)

Hence this was the first clue

Stiv

Bingo!

oAlt

Since the answer was "Orthrus" – with H in the middle, or Hydrogen :000

Yeah

Stiv

This has been a case of playing the long game...

oAlt

3:28 PM

Fricking amazing

@Stiv Indeed. Also that's a lot of patience in keeping up the pattern to the end lol

Stiv

Thanks :) I started this series straight after finishing my previous themed one last November. It's the Periodic Table in atomic number order. The answer to clue 4 in the series was literally 'Be', and I decided at that point that that was cheating, and made sure that all the rest were properly concealed in words!

Jafe

hah, i remember the BE one!

oAlt

Hahahah

Jafe

the previous answers were like A, AA, AAA etc... so there was a reason you couldn't continue that pattern hehe

juicifer

yeah I remember that too lmao

I was like "oh stiv can't find anything that's named AAAAAA so he's moving onto the next letter of the alphabet"

Stiv

3:35 PM

Ah yes, that's why I did that! Ha, funny I'd forgotten!

juicifer

if only you'd been one clue further along lol

Stiv

Nov 19, 2021 at 13:43, by juicifer

CCCC: Top mark in academia! (1)

^ That's where that sequence began

Jafe

oh yeah the immediately next one could have been just B hahahah

juicifer

Nov 19, 2021 at 15:28, by juicifer

we've run out of a's so we've moved onto b I guess

Stiv

That would have been too good :)

Jafe

3:38 PM

the series could have continued until everyone was like zzzzz

juicifer

keep going until nobody can find a new way to clue "noise made while snoring"

oAlt

(I was wondering who "Luke Zzzzz" was at first lol)

msh210

@Stiv applause

oAlt

(also is that the first C4 here with a one-letter answer or did I miss others?)

Jafe

dunno, i know there's been a 0-letter answer at least

Stiv

3:41 PM

Jul 27, 2017 at 22:39, by humn

Okay, just to get it over with (answer online): Half of II (1)

Jul 27, 2017 at 22:44, by stacksfiller

CCCC: Nothing left, with zero length (0)

One after the other!

Jafe

hah

oAlt

Ah yeah, I forgot those two existed but I saw them while backreading in the C4 archive before

juicifer

I'm not even the first person to write an &lit c4 about the letter A:

Feb 26, 2020 at 17:15, by Deusovi

CCCC: High-strung type of note! (1)

Jafe

oh right that too

Sphinx

3:57 PM

-1

Q: Iq question from mensa iq app

Anybody have an idea how to answer the attached question. Can't seem to figure it out!

mathematics

oAlt

4:15 PM

Omg thx for the bounty Stiv, did not expect :00 (I've learned to be content with whatever score I get here, so the bounty note was certainly surprising. But I guess in the end I shall gladly take the bounty.)

(Man I hate it when I can't express myself concisely in one go and thus still have to edit what I say lol)

Stiv

@oAlt No worries, you're welcome, and I'm happy to give it :) If it gains Jafe an extra upvote or two for the puzzle at the same time, I'll be even happier - we definitely don't set or solve cryptics for the rep on this site, but the recognition of the effort that goes into them is certainly something that's nice to see when it gets expressed :)

oAlt

Yeahh

msh210

4:40 PM

CCCC: K-O and big plant, both for the audience… that's what a recent bout was (10)

Sphinx

0

Q: Famous faces on different ways

I'm looking for a two-word phrase. One of the words starts with C and contain eleven letters ;). The other one is up to you to figure out. Good luck! A C Q B R V O M R Y A B O I L K F W P D R I U A V G H M Y S C D G O J L M H I B R W A Q...

knowledge enigmatic-puzzle visual

Sphinx

6:05 PM

0

Q: Use crystal ball to hide bristle, like a rake?

Pls help. I'm quite sure the answer is 'scrawny' but cannot work out why.