The Sphinx's Lair

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Jafe

01:23

this must be common-or-garden (= ordinary), made of M ON ORGAN with the last letter replaced with R+D (right down), with COM in the beginning... but where do the final E and N come from?

or maybe it's RDE (right + down + 'the' end) taken by the word organ?

which would make .COM + M + ON + ORGA(R+D+_E)N

2 hours later…

oAlt

03:26

@Jafe this is likelier but I don't know what the "from" does

1 hour later…

Jafe

04:54

yeah dunno

for the surface i have to say i like that an ordinary of mass is an actual thing and inthebeginning.com is an existing christian site

msh210

05:24

@Jafe yes indeed

@oAlt nothing much, I'm sorry to say. My intention was that I was using "from in the beginning" as an indicator… but I don't think anyone actually says "from in the beginning".

Jafe

CCCC: One of the extremists from Finland: "Is Mr Lee obligated to ride?" (4,7)

oAlt

@msh210 👌

msh210

It's gotta be Vilhelm Junnila, now to figure out the wordplay... and enumeration…

Oh, it's actually F or D (an extremist from Finland) must Ang = a ride.

@Jafe and, despite how it looks, I totally didn't just create it for the purpose of this clue. Not at all.

Jafe

05:51

hehe

that's right

msh210

06:09

CCCC: Regressive hate preacher hides extremist group (4)

oAlt

06:24

Ah, the or trick

@msh210 is this PETA, hidden by h(ate p)reacher< ?

And for justification as to why they fit the defn, I guess it's partly because they don't want animals to be eaten or experimented on

msh210

06:53

@oAlt it is

@oAlt well, maybe, but I meant because of their tactics in achieving those aims. I think it's pretty widely held to be an extremist group

oAlt

yeah that too

CCCC: Constant? I change state of Brazil (9)

Daniel S

@oAlt TOCANTINS*

oAlt

@DanielS yes correct :)

Daniel S

CCCC Slow rhythm for me cryptically. (4-4)

msh210

07:09

@DanielS is this maybe dead (=slow, as in "this store is dead, no customers") + beat (rhythm) = dead-beat (someone who doesn't pay his debts when due, a reference to this)??

Daniel S

@msh210 Ingenious, but not the intended answer.

msh210

Oh, good, because I don't think that's a fair characterization of you.

Daniel S

@msh210 Thanks for the kind thoughts, it’s a tricky time.

Sphinx

Q: How do I determine whether a 5x5 Lights-Out puzzle is solvable without trying to solve it?

The following two 5x5 Lights-Out puzzles are not solvable. Is there a way to find out why, without trying to solve them? [1, 0, 0, 1, 0] [1, 1, 1, 1, 0] [1, 1, 1, 0, 0] [0, 0, 1, 0, 0] [1, 1, 1, 1, 1] [1, 1, 1, 0, 1] [1, 0, 0, 1, 0] [0, 1, 0, 1, 0] [0, 1, 0, 1, 1] [0, 1, 1, 1, 1] (These are just ...