The Sphinx's Lair

12:43 AM

@Stiv nicely spotted

ah so the buried was part of the indicator... wow i was not close to getting that

1 hour later…

1:52 AM

@AncientSwordRage yeah looks about right indeed. But what about that square?

2:24 AM

The square is the one I need most help with...

@Stevo For the square, you can again pick any 3 out of 16 vertices, but you need to subtract the cases where the three are on the same line. So it's 16 choose 3 - #(triples on the same line). Can you calculate how many such triples are there?

@Ankoganit Ah, that should be very helpful. Idk how I was thinking about that earlier. That should get my going...

Great, let me know if you get stuck somewhere!

thanks!

2:53 AM

So at this point, it would be (16 choose3)- 4(5 choose 3), right?

3:31 AM

@Stevo That looks right to me

k thanks !

no worries

and that will equal to 520 triangles...

3:53 AM

CCCC: Explorers went far beyond these, I recall: corps went nuts (5,7)

4:03 AM

corps went nuts lol

something about the surrender of Germans in 1944...? or am I just barking up on the wrong tree

5:09 AM

@msh210 This could be POLAR CIRCLES = IRECALLCORPS* (def=Explorers went far beyond these)

What about the went nuts part...

juicifer

5:21 AM

@Stevo that's the anagram indicator

apart from instinct that the def is at the end, that sounds about right

5:48 AM

@Stiv it could be and it is

6:18 AM

CCCC: Croatian smuggles grain (3)

@Stiv why would I be suprised not to find a 3 letter Cryptic clue

_oat_

... ok I feel stupid now

@Jafe Yup :)

why are people so good at this but i am not

6:22 AM

Experience, mainly - it comes with time :)

oh ok then, I have absolutely every bit of faith in myself that I will be able to master the cryptics... oh what a dream...

has anyone made a techno tribute as a puzzle yet...?

CCCC: Composer of Ring is unendingly adorable (6)

@Stevo speaking of, it's a bit suspicious that Stiv's recent clues are all shorter than usual... But I don't see a pattern yet

@oAlt thats actually quite true... what are you up to again, Stiv?

defsus

6:42 AM

@Jafe if it were a standard rather than a cryptic clue, I'd say Wagner :-P

Ugh, I want to solve this C4 so badly since I've found another way of using "Composer of Ring" but I keep hitting dead ends :P

2 hours later…

user39583

8:52 AM

@Ankoganit Well, if Stevo's original wording "three or more" was correct, then it's a lot harder, since you can make triangles like this i.stack.imgur.com/PGZQ5.png

Q: How do I solve this unreasonable 6x6 game of Towers without backtracking?

I wouldn't neccessarily count that as A triangle... but fair enough

Sphinx

I'm playing Towers by Simon Tatham (rules are in the link). This game shares some solution logic to Sudoku. I recently moved to the last suggested level of difficulty, 6x6 Unreasonable, but I apparenly miss a tool in my belt to solve that level of difficulty because everytime I try one, I can't f...

unsolved-mysteries

9:31 AM

early hint for the c4: the enumeration could also be "5 or 6"

What does that mean?

I think it means the word has two valid spellings

10:17 AM

@Jafe Kawai i_ for 6, or kawai(i) for 5

Never mind, I was wrong lol. But now I see the need to give the hint.

(If I may ask though, what does "ring" mean in this case? :0)

10:36 AM

@oAlt Yeah, that's why I'm really not sure I'm right. But the company makes electronic instruments (synthesizers, etc.), which i suppose have rings

11:00 AM

Ahh

@msh210 Oh, I think Jafe intended Kenji Kawai, a music composer for the horror film Ring (directed by Hideo Nakata).

11:29 AM

@oAlt ah nice

@oAlt If he did, go next.

Kenji Kawai(i) was the intended answer, yes

@msh210 @Jafe what say you? I personally wanted msh to take it instead since he figured out what both answers were and what the wordplay (basically) was

i would have accepted msh210's answer, but since he specifically said you can go next let's go with that

Noted

(and yeah, the english name of the japanese film is apparently just Ring, even though the US remake is The Ring)

Q: My IQ will be so high if someone can solve this for me

11:45 AM

CCCC: Composer of Ring? "Lifted up not one man in the city of angels" (4)

1 hour later…

Sphinx

12:47 PM

This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #2: IQ Puzzle Parody I'm stumped with the IQ test question below. Can anyone give me a hand so I can prove how smart I am? Which of the three options is correct?

enigmatic-puzzle

1:38 PM

Amol is kinda composed of rings (or half rings, specifically some roads that circle the city), but I wouldn't say it's a composer of ring. The wordplay fits, though: A(M O)L <

1:55 PM

As you might suspect, that is not the intended answer. :0

@oAlt I did in fact suspect that. Wow, I'm good.

2:38 PM

:))

G_as_in_Gnome

2:56 PM

Is the answer LAMA? It's a genus which composes a RING, aka an organization/classification system. The wordplay fits for this as well - L(A M)A

AncientSwordRage

3:53 PM

I feel like it's something to do with 'y of a'

'Lifted up not one man' might be to put not one man at the front

Maybe this chap from mayo is involved?

Michael Ring

Michael Ring (born 24 December 1953) is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Mayo constituency since 1997, and previously from 1994 to 1997 for the Mayo West constituency. He served as Minister for Rural and Community Development from 2017 to 2020 and as a Minister of State from 2011 to 2017. == Early and personal life == Ring was born in Westport, County Mayo, in 1953. He was educated at Westport CBS and the local vocational school. He later worked as an estate agent and auctioneer in Westport. == Political career == Ring was unsuccessful as a Fine Gae...