The Sphinx's Lair

Sphinx

2:33 AM

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My 1st is the entry My 2nd made me think of 1848 My 3rd is a library My 4th made me think of 26 My 5th is financial My 6th made me think of 194 My 7th leads to Bob My 8th made me think of C My 9th is nuclear Decrypt this puzzle's title: 1747 PBORNITD.G.E

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Q: Counting them 100 years later

At first A was 1 B was 1 C was 2 D was 1 E was 3 F was 2 G was 1 M was 1 P was 1 R was 2 S was 3 T was 1 W was 3 100 years later A is 4 B is 6 C is 7 D is 1 E is 1 F is 2 G is 1 H is 2 J is 1 M is 2 R is 3 S is 6 T is 5 V is 1 W is 3 What are we counting?

knowledge history

oAlt

4:31 AM

Regarding Lukas Rotter's Barbecue puzzle, I haven't checked all the phrases but the atomic number phrase doesn't seem to appear anywhere in Wikipedia

Prince North Læraðr

4:46 AM

I can't figure it out

Maybe if he coaxed me with more rep so I can recover that 350 rep I'll be losing into the void

msh210

@PrinceNorthLæraðr would a stick work as well as a carrot would?

Prince North Læraðr

Are you threatening me with my own limbs?

msh210

good point, sorry about that

Prince North Læraðr

Hmph

Jafe

i suppose a tree seeing heads on spikes outside the city walls would understand the warning but because of the spikes, not the heads

3

Prince North Læraðr

5:03 AM

I can't believe what I'm hearing

What if I took your limbs and stuck a leaf on it

That'll show them

Jafe

it's just human nature, cutting trees gives us wood

i'll get my coat

Prince North Læraðr

no please, regale us more with your puns

msh210

okay, you ashed for it…

Prince North Læraðr

CCCC: Greenhouse where I learned music (12)

msh210

5:21 AM

conservatory ddef?

Prince North Læraðr

yeah

msh210

now I understand why you took up music… you lived in a conservatory for so long that you got confused

Prince North Læraðr

hehehe

I just wanted the C4 out of my hands

Otherwise I would've blown up

msh210

CCCC: To revive an animal — that's Benjamin Franklin's demand (7)

Jafe

north: (hands over c4) msh210: "thanks!" (immediately explodes) north: "phew"

2

msh210

5:24 AM

it's not nitro…

Jafe

"give me $100" would be benjamin franklin's demand, i suppose

Prince North Læraðr

HAHAHA

oAlt

@msh210 nice, I kept thinking of the wrong -servatory (observatory) and the word was on the tip of my tongue...

Prince North Læraðr

I really wanted to plagiarize "Right, not vice versa, wrong" for CONSERVATIVE* from the Guardian Cryptic

That was a really good clue

oAlt

I like that

Prince North Læraðr

5:33 AM

yeah

Jafe

6:19 AM

apparently franklin demanded canada from britain at one point

that guy did not lack in the ball department

msh210

6:44 AM

*canadia

Jafe

7:06 AM

2 days ago, by Jafe

started a 66-clue jumbo cryptic because i hate future jafe and hope he has a hard time

this is halfway done

take that past jafe, ya jerk

feuding with your own time variants is a sign of a healthy sense of self, i like to assume

oAlt

@msh210 I wonder why people of Canada are called Canadians and not Canadans

Jafe

similarly floridians

oAlt

It feels weird to me to not use the natural ending your country name already has

yeah

msh210

Alabamians too

dunno why

maybe because "Canadan" sounds too much like "Canada"? (otoh Britons are called that even though it sounds exactly the same as Britain)

Jafe

wikipedia claims it's from french, which uses -ien

in the case of canada, that is

msh210

7:12 AM

abc15.com/news/state/arizonan-vs-arizonian-which-one-is-right

Jafe

not a fully satisfying explanation though, considering french has e.g. "andorran" without the i

Lukas Rotter

@oAlt I used a dataset from github which is out-of-date to find them. The note "the phrases themselves do not require knowledge" was meant to clarify you don't need to lookup external sources, but given that you, M Oehm and Stiv all tried it, I guess that hint failed miserably :)

msh210

@Jafe no… though that's probably why we say Parisian

oAlt

7:30 AM

@LukasRotter Ah I see

I thought the fact that they all came from Wikipedia would be relevant, since they aren't just randomly made-up phrases

oAlt

7:53 AM

That's = that is = i.e. (not a fan but it's not uncommon). Short animal names are very useful. Benjamin could be a C-note (slang for a $100 bill), but unlikely. Revive might suggest reversal.

Sphinx

8:41 AM

3

Q: A 111 years old mosaic

What letter is missing in this mosaic?

enigmatic-puzzle visual

Sphinx

9:23 AM

3

Q: Modified Travelling Salesman Problem

Serghei left a note: R C +3 C +4 A +5 B +4 H +4 D +4 G +4 F +5 I +3 P +3 F +5 G +3 S +5 S +4 I +4 M +4 L +4 E +4 S +4 S +2 L +6 N +7 L +10 B +8 C +6 P +7 ----- = 122 This is the best I can come up with! Not sure what's wrong with him, this route is all over the place, a...

knowledge enigmatic-puzzle

Jafe

1:11 PM

if benjamin franklin ever bought a vowel in wheel of fortune maybe his demand was "an I, mate"

msh210

that'd be his brother bruce franklin

C4 quasi-hint: I recommend you start with the definition rather than with the wordplay, for this one.

Jafe

alright now how do i quasi-pin this

i suspect diving into the life of benjamin franklin might be in order...

Dec 1, 2021 at 12:00, by Jafe

that guy did not have a boring life

juicifer

1:46 PM

@msh210 as opposed to a parisite

2

msh210

2:07 PM

I'll be away from chat, starting in… probably <2 hours, and extending >24 hours. So here's the SHA-256 hash of my (lowercase) answer, as computed here: 0c3e015009e5155c2c7c815f314916adf370dce9f827818decb4531b453e1237

oAlt

2:18 PM

@Sphinx Serghei is apparently a Romanian name, but Romania has 41 first-order administrative divisions, not 27 (number of letters) nor 26 (number of numbers). But of course it wouldn't be that easy would it. But regardless, 26 raises eyebrows as usual...

Franklin's demand

Jafe

2:37 PM

hmm!

resurrect could be revive, then somehow urr > p?

juicifer

it is respect, and it's RES (clipping of resurrection, according to wiktionary (sense 5)) + PET (animal) that has ('s) C (benjamin, as in $100 bill)

wouldn't have found that without the suggestion, so thanks @oAlt

oAlt

Oh wow!

Thanks and nice find, I didn't think the wp-def split would be there

I think I've heard of that usage of res before ("res me" is what I heard the most, I like to think)

juicifer

I definitely hadn't and I was about to post a partial solution but then I was like let me dig a little deeper

oAlt

(hash checks out too)

I discarded that's = that has immediately and I didn't think of pet = animal since I was focused on finding general names for animals such as cat dog etc.

juicifer

2:58 PM

CCCC: Engage in intercourse with British individual (4)

Jafe

if you insist

oAlt

@juicifer B one

Jafe

argh just got it too

juicifer

@oAlt natch

oAlt

@juicifer TIL that word

CCCC: A reptile with tail covered in red dye (8)

juicifer

3:03 PM

@oAlt ok, A LIZAR(-d) IN is a red dye

oAlt

@juicifer yep

juicifer

new one for me but I guess it pays to follow your hunches

Sphinx

1

Q: Merged Paris 2024 Medals Table

What happened to this Olympic Games Paris 2024 Medals Table? Country Gold Argent Bronze Total People's Republic of China 9 3 2 14 United States of America 5 9 5 19 France 5 5 5 15 Netherlands 5 1 1 7 Japan 5 1 2 8 Great Britain 3 5 2 10 Germany 3 2 4 9 New Zealand 3 1 1 5 R...

logical-deduction knowledge calculation-puzzle

juicifer

CCCC: Woman woke up in a good mood, from what I've heard (8)

oAlt

@juicifer Rosemary = "rose merry" homophone

juicifer

3:18 PM

@oAlt yep

as opposed to having rose madder

oAlt

Lol

CCCC: This might help you rest in tiny quilt (6)

juicifer

@oAlt _ny quil_ :)

oAlt

3:33 PM

@juicifer ye

juicifer

3:44 PM

CCCC: A bloomer, periodically (4)

Sphinx

0

Q: Overlap two Chess Games

Create two valid Chess games (A and B) with the minimum number of moves (you will sum the number of moves of A and B) such that overlapping the two games creates a valid chess position. The following rule will be considered. There can't be a piece on a square on game B if there is also a piece o...

calculation-puzzle optimization chess computer-puzzle checkerboard

Stiv

4:59 PM

@juicifer ALOE = A_L_O_E_ &lit!

juicifer

@Stiv precisely

Stiv

5:19 PM

CCCC: In France, one buries unsuspecting victim (deceased) in the open (8)

Prince North Læraðr

6:50 PM

Aw I was hoping it was catacombs, but that's 9 letters

@oAlt See, in Korean Italy is Italia, but Canada is not Canadia and that confused me as a child

Sphinx

9:29 PM

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Q: efficiently reverse EISH to HSIE

Reverse **** * **** * * * * * * * **** * **** **** * * * * * **** * **** * * to * * **** * **** * * * * * **** **** * **** * * * * * * * **** * **** by moving minimal amount of points (stars * here in ascii re...

enigmatic-puzzle

Prince North Læraðr

9:45 PM

whoever is in charge of naming chemistry things needs to be fired

Reduction is when a substance gains electrons in a RedOx reaction, thus lowering it's oxidation number, and is the oxidizing agent, which is taking electrons from the substance being oxidized

"The reducing agent is oxidized" THANKS CHEMISTRY

Jafe

11:05 PM

@Stiv i think this is UN(MARK)E+D. (in the open, like a grave)

Stiv

@Jafe That's the intended wordplay, although I intended the def to be football(soccer)-related. I guess graves kinda works too?

Jafe

ahh i see

unmarked as in not being guarded

Stiv

Precisely so

Jafe

CCCC: A metalhead song from Germany (7)

Sphinx

11:51 PM

1

Q: What was I thinking when I drew this diagram?

True story which I thought worth sharing: I recently came across a scrawled diagram on a scrap piece of paper while tidying my house. It was clearly my handiwork (probably a rough idea for a puzzle), consisting of an arrangement of letters and arrows, and I had absolutely no idea why I had consid...

knowledge visual letters

0

Q: How many clues are sufficient to solve an X-Sudoku puzzle?

I've heard that for standard Sudoku a minimum of 17 clues are needed to solve a puzzle, but I imagine it might be slightly less in the variant X-Sudoku, because I assume there would be slightly fewer options for each cell. Is this true, and if so, how many clues would be sufficient to solve one?

sudoku

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