The Sphinx's Lair

Jafe

01:03

@PrinceNorthLæraðr think there were 2 total in 2023, and 1 so far this year... so i definitely wouldn't call them as much a 'thing' as they were a few years ago

@Sphinx it's spelt 'placido domingo'

2

Prince North Læraðr

@Jafe Whew, that's a relief

msh210

02:29

My beginning was by Riley and pleasant. My middle was overly pervasive and of low quality. My end is nowish, it seems.

3

Ankoganit

03:49

@MOehm this is REARRANGING THE DECKCHAIRS (on the Titanic, an idiom for doing something pointless) which yields SCRATCHEDHIKE* in cryptic-speak

Prince North Læraðr

Oooh nice solve

@msh210 Yeah the original Riley Riddle was very charming and then the site just became flooded with them @_@

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr thanks lol

@PrinceNorthLæraðr yeah this is pretty common with formats that can be used to make new puzzles with relatively low effort

Prince North Læraðr

04:08

Which is kinda tragic

Ankoganit

The security to the party series comes to mind

Prince North Læraðr

I don't even know if I know that series

I haven't made a puzzle here in a reallly long time though

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr It's not all bad imo, it's a good way for new users to get started be engaged

Prince North Læraðr

I guess so

We all start somewhere

Ankoganit

But yeah it's sad that given the sheet quantity of these, there's very few of these that reinvents or subverts the formula

Prince North Læraðr

04:09

I don't like to think of my first puzzles here >_<;

Actually I don't like to think about any of my puzzles here >_<;

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr haha you should search it up if you are looking for some mediocre to terrible puzzles

same lol

It's actually insane how much I've learnt about puzzle-making from the community

Prince North Læraðr

Actually I think I am proud of this one simply because I put A LOT of time into it

Even if I sucked at making cryptic clues back then

oAlt

@Ankoganit ahh, I guess "after cryptically doing this" is the reverse cryptic indicator?

I had mistakenly thought "after" would be part of the anagram too

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Don't be too hard on yourself, I liked some of your later puzzles! I think the key takeaway should be the obvious improvement, and just imagine how much better these will get over time

@oAlt yes, seems so

oAlt

👌

@PrinceNorthLæraðr same, but especially my second one where I did a bad attempt at cryptic clues. I lay low after that one

Prince North Læraðr

04:17

@Ankoganit Thanks! I just realized the Connect Walls that were kind of popular around the time I posted mine was like the precursor for the NY Times Connect Four or whatever they call it xD

Ankoganit

Yeah lol we were doing connect walls before they were cool

Prince North Læraðr

LMAO this is true

when all my friends were playing it on NYT I was like "wait this looks familiar"

Ankoganit

Inb4 NYT adds Rileys

2

Prince North Læraðr

LOL

Riley sues NYT for plagiarism, wins millions of pennies

Ankoganit

heck yeah

Prince North Læraðr

04:27

Maybe I'll continue this series xD

Or maybe I should just post some good ol' CCs now that I actually understand how they work

I don't know why it never made sense to me

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr if you're feeling inspired my advice is to go for it

Prince North Læraðr

The only issue is that I have NO clue what to do

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr I think there's a distinct moment where you stop thinking of cryptic clues as puzzles with an arbitrary set of rules and realize "oh it's just instructions phrased weirdly to mess with me"

Prince North Læraðr

Yup

Exactly what happened with me

Hm I'm actually getting some ideas for a Tetris puzzle, it may or may not happen (possibly. if I have time.)

M Oehm

@Ankoganit Yes, that's it.

Prince North Læraðr

04:45

@Sphinx I do love pronouncing it as BAR-BE-QU-UH

Ankoganit

CCCC: Kind of cheese, sharp for a short time (7)

Prince North Læraðr

All the seven letter cheeses that I recognize that Qat spits out are CHEDDAR (which first came to mind), GRUYERE, and RICOTTA

Esp bc CHEDDAR is considered a sharp cheese but I feel like it's intentionally there to throw us off

oAlt

bestforpuzzles.com/lists/cheeses/7.html

Here's some more

I can't see anything that fits though...

Prince North Læraðr

Yeah

Oooh MUNSTER

Not that it fits anywhere, I just like the cheese

Oh duh maybe "kind of cheese" is part of the wordplay

So it's a shorter cheese name like SWISS or something

Possibly an &lit? The splitting seems weird if the def is "time" or "a short time" or something

Can a short time be like... ti? tim?

@Ankoganit Hm BRIE+FLY?

Ankoganit

05:07

@PrinceNorthLæraðr that's it!

Prince North Læraðr

Yay

Oh my gosh I forgot that stilton was a type of cheese

oAlt

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Ahhh!

Prince North Læraðr

All I associated with that is Geronimo Stilton

M Oehm

Nice stream-of-consciousness solve-along.

oAlt

I had totally forgotten about short cheese names

Prince North Læraðr

05:09

@MOehm Thank you, I hope it's not too annoying to anyone

oAlt

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Oh I kinda miss that

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr I actually enjoy seeing the thought process behind puzzles

Prince North Læraðr

It was such a fun series as a child

I just like to think out loud :P

oAlt

Yeah, I don't remember if mine got thrown away when I got older but I hope not

Prince North Læraðr

I remember just like borrowing a whole buttload of them at a time whenever our class went to the school's library

HAHAAHAHA THE WRITER IS ITALIAN

Idk why that's funny to me

oAlt

05:13

hahah

Prince North Læraðr

Huh they're actually all first published/written in Italian and then I presume translated?

oAlt

I'd always read them at a bookstore we always frequented (but almost never buy it for some reason 🤨)

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Yeah I kinda remember that's what happened

Prince North Læraðr

@oAlt Honestly going to Barnes and Noble (or which ever bookstore you went to) just to read books is such a vibe

oAlt

:)

Ah, but I searched right now and I didn't remember (or know, I guess) that the author is a woman

Prince North Læraðr

Yeah I didn't realize (or forgot) it was a woman

I'm like rereading some of these online and I have to say they're actually pretty well written

Fun plots, and they very surreptitiously teach words/concepts without feeling too much like they're trying to teach you stuff, if you understand what I mean

oAlt

05:21

True

Prince North Læraðr

> an ancient Roman silver coin, originally worth ten asses.

The definition for denarius threw me off so badly

M Oehm

Which of the ten in particular?

Prince North Læraðr

As (Roman coin)

The as (pl.: assēs), occasionally assarius (pl.: assarii, rendered into Greek as ἀσσάριον, assárion), was a bronze, and later copper, coin used during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. == Republican era coinage == The Romans replaced the usage of Greek coins, first by bronze ingots, then by disks known as the aes rude. The system thus named as was introduced in ca. 280 BC as a large cast bronze coin during the Roman Republic. The following fractions of the as were also produced: the bes (2⁄3), semis (1⁄2), quincunx (5⁄12), triens (1⁄3), quadrans (1⁄4), sextans (1⁄6), uncia (1⁄12, also a common...

CCCC: Half-century composer drops from the top (5)

Oops ignore that

I just realized that 50 years is L not D

Rats so much for that clue

(If a mod can delete that clue I'd appreciate it)

D is 500 :/ the answer was D+IVES

msh210

05:54

well, if dropping from the top can be called living…

Prince North Læraðr

:P

I do apologize for the fake C4

But at least it's better than a real one

Prince North Læraðr

06:13

CCCC: Notified around something like a sharp hit (7)

msh210

If "about" would work in the clue as well as "around" does, then it'd IMO be better surfacewise, since someone can be notified about something.

oAlt

06:31

Sep 6, 2022 at 0:26, by msh210

CCCC: A vehicle takes a sharp turn in celebratory spirits (8)

Sep 7, 2022 at 13:21, by juicifer

@msh210 could this be BUS (a vehicle) surrounding B♭ + LIE (turn in!) to get BUBBLIES (champagnes)?

I wonder if "a sharp" is doing the same thing here... Or at least if it also refers to the note...

msh210

06:46

I'm impressed by your memory.

Jafe

06:59

it's e(ncycloped, bordering on idet)ic

msh210

I would think a round something would give a blunt hit.

oAlt

@msh210 (I put it in the wrong places)

msh210

@oAlt nice thinking; I think this is clu(Bb)ed

@PrinceNorthLæraðr

Prince North Læraðr

yup!

oAlt

Ahhh

Prince North Læraðr

07:13

Dang I really thought I was clever

Jafe

nice clue

3

oAlt

I had thought it was clobber but that went nowhere

Prince North Læraðr

But Msh beat me to it 2 years ago xD

oAlt

Still clever haha

msh210

that just means we're both clever :-D

Prince North Læraðr

07:14

@msh210 This was for sure a better surface, i didn't realize about could be a container

@Jafe Thanks!

I wasn't sure if hit=clubbed was a fair clue

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr IMO it is definitely

oAlt

Agreed it's fair

Prince North Læraðr

Okay whew

Jafe

yeah "hit" for "clubbed" is surely fine

Prince North Læraðr

Also, as a music major, I will pull out the "um actually" and say that A# isn't necessarily the same thing as Bb, hence "something like A#"

Enharmonic equivalence, etc. how you spell notes is pretty important even if it sounds the same since they communicate different meanings

Anyhow /rant about music theory :P

@oAlt Also the fact that you pulled this up out of thin air was pretty crazy xD

Jafe

07:20

my friend composes electronic music for fun and the software he uses doesn't have flats at all, only sharps

so the melody line might have something like A A# A A# and you just have to live with it (i assume you get used to it)

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr CCCC: Someone who's interested in music: remain more chill. (11)

oAlt

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Lolll

Prince North Læraðr

Harhar :P

oAlt

Yeah I've also heard of enharmonic equivalence before but never learned more about it

Prince North Læraðr

Enharmonic equivalence is basically when two notes have the same pitch but different ways of spelling them, like A# and Bb, C# and Db, E natural and F#, etc.

oAlt

07:22

Ahh right

Prince North Læraðr

It doesn't really matter if the main purpose is for listening, but it matters a lot if you're giving the music to performers to read

msh210

By the way, I have a question for you as a music person (if you don't mind, of course). My kid is learning piano, and had a sharp symbol (or flat symbol, I forget which) written on the beginning of the staff rather than next to an individual note. I asked what that means, and my kid said that it means every note on the staff is sharpened (or flattened (or whatever the word is)).

But there were no notes on that staff! The symbol was on the left-hand (F-clef, I think it's called?) staff, and the entire song was being played with the right hand (notes writteh on the other staff). So what's the point of the symbol?

Prince North Læraðr

One of the critiques that I got actually in my string quartet was that string players will tend to tend to playing/tuning slightly sharper on notes written sharp while tune slightly flat when reading flat notes, which can mess with intonation when approached incorrectly

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr (Huh. For some reason I remember you play a mouth (brass or woodwind) instrument. Obviously, I don't have oAlt's memory.)

Prince North Læraðr

@msh210 Did it also have a sharp or a flat in the right hand staff (the treble staff?)

@msh210 I do! I play trumpet

msh210

07:27

@PrinceNorthLæraðr could be; I don't recall

oAlt

@msh210 if "in music:" is a homophone indicator then "stay colder" sounds like "stakeholder", someone who's interested

Prince North Læraðr

The symbol in the front of the staff is called a key signature, and like your son said, it denotes that every single instance of that note be sharp or flat. But the reason for that comes down to scales. The C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) and the A natural minor scale (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) doesn't contain any flats or sharps, but every other major and minor scale will have a unique number of sharps or flats. For example, the Eb major scale has three flats (Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D, Eb).

msh210

@oAlt yep!

Jafe

no wonder chill = composed got me nowhere

Prince North Læraðr

On the fundamental level, it makes reading music cleaner, because instead of having to put the symbols for every single note, you just tell the performer "this section has these flat notes"

oAlt

07:33

CCCC: City shows intelligence where interaction with device happens: question translated in Spanish (7)

Jafe

clicksaver service: it's 'pregunta'

msh210

Jafe is a clicksaver; what's your superpower?

Prince North Læraðr

HAHA

Jafe

heheh

this is IQ + UI + ¿QUE?, a city

oAlt

@Jafe that's correct

Prince North Læraðr

07:36

@msh210 Since piano is a two-handed instrument, the book or piece was probably trying to get your son used to reading both staves at the same time, even if it meant that the left hand isn't playing anything for that piece. Most likely the top staff also had the same key signature

I wouldn't know for sure though unless I saw the book, maybe it was doing something else

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr got it

thanks!

Prince North Læraðr

Maybe it was teaching your son polytonality though I highly doubt that :P

@msh210 Yup!

Jafe

CCCC: City in Africa fellow's escaped from (5)

oAlt

F can mean fellow I think, so Africa - F = Arica, a city in the same country as Iquique

Jafe

yeah

Prince North Læraðr

07:39

Ah

@msh210 DDOS-ing through overclicking

Prince North Læraðr

07:52

84

Q: My God, it's full of stars!

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #32: Grid Deduction Hybrids My dear friend, unknown to us, may have relocated again. He sent me imagery and constellation maps indicating that a distant red spiraling galaxy was at his zenith, and nearly collinear with the largest local galactic cores. ...

Someone please solve this puzzle, it's been 7 years ;-;

I've been on this site for 6 years??

oAlt

Oh yeah, I badly wanna see what happens there. I put a bounty once but never did anything

CCCC: Bread prepared in Southeastern Europe because of new cooler (7)

Prince North Læraðr

@oAlt I'm glad people still remember the puzzle

Paremsis made some realllly pretty puzzles

Sphinx

-1

Q: How many of the 16 cells of the grid could contain the black dot?

Beginner puzzle This puzzle is intended to be suitable for people who are new to puzzle solving. Clarification: Both experienced solvers and new solvers are welcome to post solutions to this puzzle. All four L-shapes shown in the diagram are to be placed in the 4 by 4 grid so that all sixteen ce...

mathematics combinatorics tiling polyomino

msh210

08:12

Am I the only one who thinks meta-info that has to be in a question post should be at its bottom? Like "Beginner puzzle This puzzle is intended to be suitable…" or "This puzzle continues the tradition of What is a Word…". Lead off with the important stuff, which the meta-info is not.

oAlt

For me I'd keep it at the top but make it smaller since the meta-info isn't too long

Prince North Læraðr

@Sphinx I was gonna post the solution to this, but like... meh

Lukas Rotter

Not sure, but I do find the use of # headers in the last post quite distracting

oAlt

(By small, I mean enclosed with <sub></sub>)

msh210

Hm, can "cooler" be an anagrind (as in "WEN is NEW, only cooler")?

Prince North Læraðr

08:19

hm

I was thinking NEW might just be N

but it could be an anagrind

msh210

@oAlt also good

Jafe

trawling bread in europe for candidates...

Prince North Læraðr

as am i

msh210

> Turkey has the largest per capita consumption of bread in the world as of 2000, with 199.6 kg (440 lb) per person

per… day? week? fortnight?

Prince North Læraðr

hour

msh210

08:25

ah

Jafe

even per year that is a crapton of bread (technical culinary term)

also what's up with that article having separate sections for sweden, norway and denmark while lumping finland under "finland and russia"

msh210

we waᴎt to make it our coloᴎy

Prince North Læraðr

I wonder if BREAD is something like money or something

@msh210 I audibly snorted at that comment

Jafe

hah

Prince North Læraðr

our colony

Jafe

08:28

in true communist fashion

bread can mean money but it'd be pretty weird to use "prepared" as the verb if that's the case

assuming prepared is part of the def

Prince North Læraðr

True

Can "prepared in" be an indicator?

Esp if Southeastern is SE and Europe is E then it's like

SE(BREAD)E

msh210

I'd think prepared could be an anagrind.

Prince North Læraðr

Oooh

msh210

But then "because of new cooler" would have to be the definition.

Prince North Læraðr

yeah

Jafe

08:32

fornax relates to baking bread, and has FOR (because of) N (new) at the start... maybe it's some kind of derivative from that

msh210

… an adjective referring to something that's cooler because it's new??

Prince North Læraðr

Lepinja is a seven letter bread that immediately came up when I googled "bread in southeastern europe"

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr also ladenia, projara, česnica, daktyla

Prince North Læraðr

Yeah

Jafe

cooler could be AC or a word for prison like CAN or PEN

Prince North Læraðr

08:39

oooh cooler could be AC

msh210

so putting that all together, it's… ni* SE E for N AC

NISEEFORNAC

Prince North Læraðr

I count seven letters

msh210

in niseefornac? yeah, seven, for sure.

(at least)

Ankoganit

seven is a social construct

3

Jafe

could also be "in southeastern europe, because of" for a weird translated term (i don't think it is that, but i think it'd be valid)

Prince North Læraðr

08:45

what do you mean?

Jafe

like a greek word meaning "because of" or something

Prince North Læraðr

ah

Call me crazy, but what if "bread prepared in southerastern europe" is like... a currency in europe?

Jafe

drachma?

msh210

16 mins ago, by Jafe

bread can mean money but it'd be pretty weird to use "prepared" as the verb if that's the case

Prince North Læraðr

Ah right, but like.. printing money?

Jafe

08:47

lev, leu, denar, dinar, mark, lek, lira... previously drachma, tolar, kuna

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr my second-favorite pastime

Prince North Læraðr

i'm scared to know what your first is

Jafe

favourite is spending it after the printing?

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr no comment

Jafe

hmm still think this is most likely to be a term for bread... there are so many

Prince North Læraðr

08:49

yeah

Jafe

this clue is turning up to be a real pita

4

msh210

sedater = cooler, and it has SE in it, but doesn't seem to fit the clue otherwise

Prince North Læraðr

is italy considered south eastern europe

Jafe

just southern i think

Prince North Læraðr

welp it's 2 am so i should sleep

oAlt

09:01

Good night!

msh210

09:25

@oAlt cozonac = coz o' N AC (h/t, sorted by "Origin")

oAlt

09:38

@msh210 Yep you found it!

msh210

CCCC: Bad air dictated inflammation of my airways (6)

Stevo

11:07

miasma

(my + asthma) homophone

msh210

yep!

Stevo

11:50

CCCC: While performing "The Task", Spooner's eating the entrance (5,3,5)

Don't know how fair the parsing is in my view, but it should be fine

(And I'm going to bed, so expect and answer in around 24 hours or 10 hours at best)

MD5 hash, (no caps, with spacing) is c802c149044057fc869db11d9ff1ae58 so please do check it for yourself

(unless someone solves it in the next 2 minutes)

oAlt

12:36

@Stevo doing the chore = Spoonerism of "chewing the door"

I think it should be that but checking the hash just in case...

huh, that's weird, it doesn't match. To those who have checked MD5's before, what website did you use?

Jafe

tried three different ones, i get cac00a9d061c2516c7e5d03b0b764779 every time

oAlt

13:01

same

oAlt

13:14

I haven't tried variations of it yet though

Jafe

13:38

the true puzzle ended up being a cryptography one

Jafe

13:50

doing the chore plus enter gives the correct hash btw

c802c149044057fc869db11d9ff1ae58

oAlt

oh wow nicely spotted

@msh210 clicksaver and lifesaver, it turns out

Sphinx

0

Q: Organizing a totally secret murder mystery

I have an idea for murder mystery mechanics and I need helpful tips to build it up to a working game. So, I'm at a party, where guests are totally unaware of any upcoming murder mystery. Nothing fancy there yet. I want to hand out a card to a guest, in secret, containing the premise and rules for...

game puzzle-creation situation

oAlt

14:06

CCCC: Phoenix team is unstable internally (4)

juicifer

_s uns_

oAlt

@juicifer Yup!

Prince North Læraðr

15:00

@msh210 ohhh nice

msh210

thx

juicifer

15:17

CCCC: A Frenchman goes to port for a certain spice (4)

Prince North Læraðr

15:48

Hm, Frenchman can be FR right? I can’t think of any spices with FR though

It’s clearly _MANGOES__and is definitely not because I want some

oAlt

Ah, this is probably mace (a certain spice) = ace (A) + M. (Monsieur, Frenchman) goes to the left (the port) @juicifer

Prince North Læraðr

Ooooh clean solve

oAlt

thx

Prince North Læraðr

Oh! “the port” is like a ship position thingy right

The port and the starboard?

That’s really clever

Sphinx

16:05

0

Q: Arrange yourselves in a more interesting order

The items below are arranged in alphabetical order. However, there is a more interesting way to order them. athletics commissioner attendance metrics bronze rowers info URL lacrosse venue mezzanine level network broadcast Paris IX arrondissement plinth reevaluation travel event weight...

wordplay lateral-thinking find-the-order

oAlt

@PrinceNorthLæraðr yeah

juicifer

16:47

@oAlt yep!

oAlt

CCCC: Valuable setter's going to port with a light ender (9)

oAlt

17:09

I'm about to sleep so here's the MD5 hash for the answer (fully lowercase): 48818f3da3d36ad762480b319b56f588

msh210

18:19

Dear me, I wonder what "valuable setter" can clue.

Gareth McCaughan

20:45

@msh210 ho ho

Sphinx

22:34

0

Q: A Never-Before-Seen Sequence

Continue the following sequence of a's, b's, and c's: abcacbaabbccaaccbbabacabcbcaaabaacbbbcbabbacccacaabccbcbbcababcaacaccabbbaaacccbacbccccaaaabbabbcbcb These are the first 100 letters in an infinite sequence. Ever character is the best possible character to create a novel, never-before-seen s...

mathematics sequence

Lukas Rotter

23:12

i hate <canvas>

good night :)

Transcript for