The Sphinx's Lair

AncientSwordRage

1:07 AM

@Sphinx terrifying

Sphinx

1:47 AM

0

Q: Rules, rules, rules... still not enough!

I hadn't gotten a letter from any of my friends in a while, so I was quite surprised when I received one from my companion, O. He usually only contacts me when he has a problem, so I was quite hesitant to read even the envelope, for fear of its contents. However, once I was certain the message wa...

Stevo

7:04 AM

I have just been thinking about the Community Metapuzzle that Deusovi did a few years back. Maybe it might be time to make another Community Metapuzzle? (just rough ideas)

Stiv

8:22 AM

20

Q: Community Metapuzzle - The Broken Time Machine

(This is the community metapuzzle, discussed in this meta thread. It requires answers from nine other puzzles linked below.) You find a mysterious device sitting on the ground. It's labelled in a language you don't recognize and doesn't seem to be like anything you've ever seen before. Picking i...

wordplay metapuzzles

^ For reference

15

Q: Community Metapuzzle

Preramble Anyone who knows me knows that I like metapuzzles. I love when seemingly unrelated things come together into a satisfying conclusion. I've had a few ideas for new ones recently, but I didn't just want to use cryptic clues again. I had another idea - what if the component puzzles weren't...

discussion

oAlt

9:12 AM

Question about CCCC archive: what should one do when listing the name of a user who changed such names (assuming the user kept their own identity and didn't associate another identity to the new name)?

For example, if I changed my name to "Oalt", then eventually in the C4 archive there would be clues written by "oAlt" in the beginning, but as the list goes on there are no more clues written by "oAlt", but instead clues written by "Oalt". So, should one change the instances of "oAlt" to "Oalt", or just keep the instances of "oAlt" intact? (I'm assuming the former, though, but again only in the assumption that the professed identity remains the same)

AncientSwordRage

@oAlt I'd make a look up table and go by user ID

@PuzzlingFerret yes, i can see other people's aggregated voting activity. Also i use 'his', the masculine pronoun, to refer to all. We humans have been doing that for a long time. If you wanna get your panties in a wad about it, that's your decision. I knew you were a snowflake when you asked on meta, "mommy, mommy someone called someone poor, are we ok with that?" [Rolls eyes] yep, we're all ok with it... except you. — JLee 6 hours ago

I'm not sure if I'm just numb to this by now... But is this a TOS breaking level comment?

My first inclination is to flag and move on but I'm wondering if I should do more

oAlt

9:34 AM

@AncientSwordRage ...

Lukas Rotter

@AncientSwordRage Wow. Yeah, that clearly breaks our COC. Not sure what else you think of doing other than flagging?

AncientSwordRage

@LukasRotter posting in the moderator only chat?

@GarethMcCaughan ^^^

oAlt

10:01 AM

@AncientSwordRage I forgot to address this oops. ...I'm really sorry, but what's a lookup table again? >_<

Oh my gosh, my brain's hurting right now. Apparently "jafe" and "Jafe" are counted as the same person. I think I'm hallucinating... I checked the sheet earlier and I thought North's biggest nemesis was "jafe", while the user he's most powerful against was "Jafe". But I checked again and apparently they're both capitalized. I could have sworn I saw different capitalizations the first time...

With that, please disregard my original question for now lol

Sphinx

0

Q: Please help me fix my intestine

Due to some unfortunate events involving a teleporter and a ceiling fan I had my innards spread all over the place. Interestingly my intestine was split into equal sized chunks representing all the shapes you can get by assembling straight and curved segments. Please help me fix my intestine by ...

jigsaw-puzzle packing

AncientSwordRage

10:32 AM

@oAlt the look up table stuff or something else?

Because you could have a column for userid on the main table, and a calculated column takes takes the userid, checks a separate table and looks up the associated name.

oAlt

10:50 AM

Ah wait imma start over

Cuz I finally found a concrete reason for asking this

Basically HTM and PiIsNot3 are the same person (explicitly stated in his bio), but because he changed his username, the C4 archive now shows that some clues were written by PiIsNot3, while the rest of the clues were written by HTM. How can this be resolved (I was thinking just change instances of "PiIsNot3" to "HTM", since he didn't seem to assign different identities to each one), and how will the lookup table apply in this case? (I'm so sorry, since visualizing is not my strongest point D: )

Ackk I couldn't edit my message again on time, I wanted to say "visualizing without examples" but you might have gotten that

Sphinx

1

Q: Some odd, some even

What's the four-word phrase I'm most likely looking for? (6) (2) (3) (4) Try figure it out! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *...

enigmatic-puzzle

AncientSwordRage

11:21 AM

@oAlt I got you

I was thinking you'd change all PilsNot3 to 57742

Wait no....Add a new column called

Current name

Add a column called userid

Set all of the userid for PilsNot3 to 57742

In another sheet you'd have

57742|HTM

And in the original sheet, you'd write =lookupfunction(57742) but the actual function

Not on desktop or I'd do it/show a better example

Gareth McCaughan

12:02 PM

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, that was well out of order. I'm fairly sure the "masculine pronoun to refer to all" is about using he/his generically -- when there is no particular person in view -- which is old-fashioned and annoying but I think not actually prohibited, but "panties in a wad" and "I knew you were a snowflake" and "mommy mommy" and "rolls eyes" all adds up to way too much not-nice-ness to be acceptable.

Mods on X.stackexchange.com don't actually have suspension or direct-message-user-threatening powers on X.meta.stackexchange.com. I don't think it's a big enough deal to involve Higher Authorities, especially for what so far as I know is a first offence.

Sphinx

12:18 PM

0

Q: What is this card matching game/trick?

As a kid I used to do this card game/trick a lot but I can’t remember what it is or how to do it anymore. All I remember is that it used math or counting. You had a certain amount of cards sort of laid out in a circle face down and then other cards are added on alternating between horizontal and ...

mathematics game cards

oAlt

1:59 PM

@AncientSwordRage thanks for the clarifications! (Admittedly though, I still don't understand some parts, but that's on me; I need to study lookup tables more.) However, I forgot to follow something up:

The Nemeses subsheet of the C4 archive lists everyone who has made at least one clue, and also lists, for each user, 1) the person who has solved the most clues, out of everyone else, from that user (hence that person is the "biggest nemesis" of the user), and 2) the person whose clues make up the majority of the clues solved by the user (hence the user is the "most powerful against" that person, with respect to the people whose clues the user has solved).

Since HTM and PiIsNot3 are the same person, they must have the same Biggest Nemesis, and they must be Most Powerful Against the same person. However, because "HTM" and "PiIsNot3" are different usernames, and due to the programming in the spreadsheet, that's not the case, as shown above, (contd. below)

which is why I considered changing instances of the previous usernames to the current username altogether (and then maybe adding a note somewhere, either as a comment or as text in a new subsheet, that this person used these two usernames or something like that).

Stiv

2:11 PM

Ooh, it's very exciting to see this spreadsheet (yes, I just said that). I love the 'Nemeses' tab, a fun idea. Just a shame that I joined the game so late - none of my clues are on there yet and I'll be very interested to see who I'm paired up against (my gut tells me msh210 has got most of mine...). Keep up the good work @oAlt!

bobble

@GarethMcCaughan I think you do understand my response. My comment calling puzzlingferret a snowflake was not abusive. It needed to be said. It also seemed to me that you were itching to say it in your answer to pf's lame question, but were forced to go the pc route due to yout position as mod. Being offended does not make one's views correct. Also, replacing he and she with they is ridiculous. We have 2 genders. — JLee 2 hours ago

... considering posting a comment pointing out that at least one fairly prominent user on the site, i.e. me, is non-binary. But on the other hand I'd rather not get my right to exist attacked today.

I mean any further than it already has

oAlt

2:30 PM

(sorry for the delay in responding, articulating quickly is admittedly not one of my strong points)

Lukas Rotter

Yeah, pointing that out would probably just trigger another chain of insults, perhaps resulting in a ban

oAlt

(Wait frick, my response is half-baked. I'll delete my message before the "sorry for the delay" and edit it. Articulation problems strike again...)

Aw frick i can't delete it

Lukas Rotter

→ 1 message moved to Trash

Not sure if Stiv gets a ping either way

oAlt

wait not that one

Lukas Rotter

whoops

:)

oAlt

2:37 PM

FKSLDJf

the "Oh no"

I'm sweating so hard I can't

But yeah I'll just clarify later

Lukas Rotter

→ 1 message moved to Trash

oAlt

thx thx heheh

Lukas Rotter

in Trash, 17 mins ago, by oAlt

@Stiv No problem, just helping out. :00 Also, so that setters can see whether their clues are similar to a previous clue (assuming they're striving for pure originality (i.e. no reinventing even if unintentional)). (Also, to clarify, I was not the one who made the Nemeses subsheet (I don't know who did), since that was already there when I accessed the C4 archive for the first time. :0 )

@bobble "It needed to be said" (on a puzzling website) is an interesting way of justifying pointless insults.

oAlt

@bobble Whatever one's opinion/response is, they should strive to say it in the right manner rather than the wrong. And especially, if a response is inherently disrespectful even before editing it to sound "right"/formal, that response is better left unsaid in the first place. :/ This is quite sad

bobble

curls into ball in the corner

Gareth McCaughan

2:54 PM

gently lobs cookies and kittens in the direction of the ball in the corner, in the hope that they might help a bit but understanding that they might not

(PSA: do not actually throw kittens)

3

Sphinx

7:58 PM

1

Q: United States Map

This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #1: Restricted Title: xkcd 1xxx The answer is a timely word No rotations; all pieces are oriented correctly The colors are not important or necessary to distinguish

word geography jigsaw-puzzle

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