The Sphinx's Lair

juicifer

00:53

@msh210 w/ a ll

msh210

02:43

@juicifer yes indeed

juicifer

02:56

CCCC: Recipe for antidote: "use rum for Mulaney's portion" (5 7)

Jafe

_se rum for Mula_

juicifer

yep yep

Jafe

CCCC: He gets high at work, regularly taking pills, in possession of controlled substance (5)

Ankoganit

@Jafe heh this is PILOT= _I_L_ in possession of POT

Jafe

that's right

oAlt

03:08

Ahh I wondered what would have IL

Ankoganit

03:35

CCCC: Chaos can potentially fix the border? (6)

oAlt

03:58

@Ankoganit mayhem = may (can, potentially) hem (fix the border?)

Ankoganit

@oAlt yep!

oAlt

Once I thought of the can/may comparison it clicked

CCCC: He gets Yale student in tune (6)

Prince North Læraðr

04:34

Yale does have a Glee club

msh210

05:21

and other musical clubs, plus a music school.

Prince North Læraðr

RIGHT, i firgot about Yale School of Music

Incredible conservatory

TakingNotes

06:05

@oAlt HELIUM (He) = ELI (Yale student) in HUM (tune)

oAlt

@TakingNotes Correct!

TakingNotes

CCCC: Starts to signal a message on abandoned island (5)

Ankoganit

@TakingNotes SAMOA (starts of "signal ... abandoned")

TakingNotes

yeah you got it

Jafe

06:26

samoa isn't the name of an island, though?

maybe i'm missing something obvious

Ankoganit

Ah, ig it's technically a nation with two islands

Had no idea before I looked this up just now

Jafe

dunno whether it would be more or less confusing if one of them was named samoa

like malta, the main island of malta

TakingNotes

ah, my samoa knowledge is off then, i thought it was just one island named samoa

Ankoganit

CCCC: The Odyssey, for one is beyond my comprehension (5,2,2)

msh210

06:50

Theodicy is beyond my comprehension, too.

Ankoganit

new word for me, TIL

might try to learn what it means when I have a higher boredom threshold

oAlt

@Ankoganit Greek tome

Ankoganit

@oAlt yep!

oAlt

CCCC: Only fish and part of foot (4)

msh210

@Ankoganit the concurrent existence of a good God and of evil in the world

Ankoganit

06:55

@oAlt triple def for SOLE

oAlt

@Ankoganit it is

Ankoganit

@msh210 ah, that's a lot simpler than google's definition made it out to be

CCCC: Sole is difficult to catch (caught 90) (9)

TakingNotes

@Ankoganit ELUSIVE (difficult to catch) caught XC (90) = EXCLUSIVE (sole)

Ankoganit

@TakingNotes correct!

TakingNotes

07:10

CCCC: Fifty-one sole (4)

Ankoganit

@TakingNotes L+ONE

oAlt

@TakingNotes L on– never mind

TakingNotes

yeah you got it :)

rip oalt

oAlt

Lol

Ankoganit

sorry not sorry

:p

Sphinx

07:18

0

Q: Where will the ants position themselves so that they are precisely twice as far from vinegar as they are from peanut butter?

An ant will always position itself so that it’s precisely twice as far from vinegar as from peanut butter. If we put a dab of vinegar at A and a dab of peanut butter at B and we release a troop of ants, what formation will they take up? Note: an ant won't position itself on top of another ant. So...

geometry

Ankoganit

CCCC: Sole taker of risk: I repaint strange fractal pattern (10,8)

edited to fix wrong count

@Sphinx the underlying geometry problem is fairly standard and well-known, but by no means easy or routine. Not sure if that makes it a math textbook problem...

msh210

@Ankoganit SINGLE taking riskirepaint* = Sierpinski triangle

oAlt

@Ankoganit single[,] taker of (risk I repaint)* = Si(erpinsiki never mind

msh210

16 mins ago, by Ankoganit

sorry not sorry

Ankoganit

@msh210 indeed

oAlt

07:29

Hahahah

Ankoganit

@msh210 hehe

msh210

08:18

CCCC: Plantar surface makes contact with Earth; no need at first to wear cowboy boot for a street in Liverpool (5)

oAlt

09:32

@msh210 P_ E n_ n_ _y

Stevo

I currently have an agriculture assignment where you have to construct a model of an agricultural product. I've decided on a bee hive, and I think I'm going along well. The main problem I have currently is making the comb frames inside the hive, and making it look like having honey or brood. I've thought of using cardboard, and engraving hexagons in, but I don't feel like it would be able to produce the look of brood and honey. Are there any ideas/suggestions I could try to replicate the comb?

2

I've looked online, and all the results are kid crafts with large hexagons. I'm trying to replicate the combs to be as realistic as possible.

msh210

09:58

@oAlt yep! (I was thinking of E_, but either way works.)

oAlt

CCCC: Aging, I faked chewing 5 Gum (7)

msh210

10:16

@oAlt gingi(V)a*

oAlt

@msh210 that's right

Ryan M

is "faked chewing" an anagram indicator?

msh210

"faked", I think

Here's an easy one, but it lets me combine a couple of previous ideas…

Ryan M

what's the "chewing" for, then?

msh210

CCCC: Chant "soles, organs, nerves, gums, heads" (4)

@RyanM I think it's meant to indicate that the V (5) is included within the faked agingi

Ryan M

10:19

@msh210 song

msh210

i.e. it means "containing"

@RyanM how do you get that?

Ryan M

ahhhhh. Okay, that makes it make sense

@msh210 s_ o_ n_ g_

msh210

@RyanM yes indeed!

Ryan M

(is that the right notation?)

msh210

I dunno if there's any "right" notation, but that's one that people commonly use here.

oAlt

10:23

@msh210 it's not the best but that's indeed what I intended

Ryan M

CCCC: Weird verbal market (6)

msh210

@RyanM bazaar ("bizarre")

nice clue

Ryan M

@msh210 Indeed!

Thanks :)

I was trying to make it a little trickier by picking a 6-letter homophone indicator, so that it would look like "weird" was an anagram indicator.

Dannyu NDos

Reminds me of that science cartoon where plutonium is sold in a bazaar.

msh210

CCCC: Here you'll need to show me Ms. Harris's way of doing things (2)

Ryan M

10:35

...2, huh...

msh210

Assuming I counted correctly. Never a safe assumption.

Dannyu NDos

😦

Ryan M

This seems like as good a time as any to ask: are cryptic answers always written in the Latin alphabet?

oAlt

@RyanM Yes, but this chatroom has tried a few foreign language clues before

Dannyu NDos

I think doing CCCC in a non-Latin script would render unfair.

MO (way of doing things), as from Mo Harris?

Ryan M

10:43

It surely must be

but also, that doesn't explain quite all the words in the clue :-p

msh210

@RyanM indeed not

Dannyu NDos

:(

msh210

11:05

Arguably this one didn't use only the Latin alphabet:

Aug 5 at 6:13, by Prince North Læraðr

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

oAlt

Oh right

msh210

And this one does use the Latin alphabet, but as a transliteration:

Dec 30, 2023 at 16:40, by Jafe

CCCC: Awesome deep-voiced singer covering The Aye of the Taiga? (6)

Ryan M

@msh210 technically, the answer is in the Latin alphabet, even if the process of getting there took a brief step outside of it

msh210

@RyanM true

And then there's this one — but you shouldn't take it as a good example of a clue!

oAlt

Yeah those two were the main foreign language clues I was thinking of

Sphinx

11:16

0

Q: Enigmatic Puzzle 5: Reflections

Particularly looking for feedback on this new enigmatic puzzle. I like the concept of it, but have gotten some comments that it might be too difficult without any hints. Let me know what you think. Happy to share hints as needed. Reflections Each time I saw it, I took one more look. VMRTNZ OA...

word enigmatic-puzzle cipher

Ryan M

@msh210 I am not sure I quite follow the answer to that one...

msh210

Awesome = badass; deep-voiced singer = bass; covering = containing (like a pillowcase covers a pillow); The Aye of the Taiga = да ("aye" in the taiga in Russia)

Ryan M

and "да" transliterates to "da", I assume?

I visually transliterated to "baaaass", partly based on how "taiga" is pronounced, then looked up how "taiga" was spelled in Russian and found "тайга́" (which does not seem to contain "д"), and then...was confused, and decided I actually had no idea :-p

msh210

@RyanM yeah

Ryan M

I assume there's ... some other spelling? Or Wikipedia is wrong?

msh210

11:28

да

Noun: да • (da)

vein, sinew

um… ignore the chat preview and click through instead :-)

Ryan M

ohhhhh

I was overly fixated on the fact that "taiga" has an "aye" in it...

msh210

ah

Ryan M

thanks for setting me straight :)

msh210

that's why they call me the conversion therapist

um, I mean, no problem

Ryan M

11:44

lol...

oAlt

11:58

It's so hard to see "mo" not being the answer though, as "way of doing things" is already a standard definition for MO...

TakingNotes

Missouri (postal code MO) is known as the "Show Me State", but i still don't quite see how the 'here you'll need to' part factors in

oh the origin of that name is a MO congressman saying "I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me."

surely that's it

Ankoganit

ahh

msh210

there you go

(and many Missourians since that time have indicated that that's the state where you need to 'show me')

oAlt

12:13

Ahh, MO = Missouri = Here you'll need to show me

For some reason that took a while to click. Nice find by the way

TakingNotes

who should take it? i only really got the last bit because i had MO from dannyu

msh210

I'd think @TakingNotes but shrug

TakingNotes

alright then

CCCC: Ruder, brasher Arab hiding in three lines of a tongue twister (8, 12)

msh210

12:47

This is the ruder, brasher Arab named Eelineso Fatonguetwis.

No need to Google, it's surely correct.

Jafe

13:01

reading known english tongue twisters because surely it's relevant

"If you're keen on stunning kites and cunning stunts,
buy a cunning stunning stunt kite."

someone had fun with that one

msh210

My favorite is "One smart fellow – he felt smart. Two smart fellows – they felt smart. Three smart fellows – they all felt smart."

Jafe

heheh

msh210

14:08

tropical thunderstorm is 8,12 and might be clued by "twister"… if there were such a thing as a tropical thunderstorm

oAlt

Is there even an anagram indicator here? "Hiding" doesn't seem to be a good one in this case

msh210

Ruder or brasher or twister could be, arguably.

Three lines of A are /, \, and -.

@RyanM it's interesting that you appear as a moderator here. SO has its own chat server, and (I just checked) I don't appear as a moderator there.

Sphinx

14:37

1

Q: Fitting the 9th piece into the pizza box

I bought two pizzas that were radially sliced into 8 pieces each. I ate 7 of the 16 pieces. Now to save space I want to place the remaining 9 pieces into one box without cutting them and without any overlap. Is this possible? For the sake of the puzzle, assume that pizzas are perfect unit circles...

mathematics geometry

oAlt

15:05

"Landseer Newfoundland" sounds like a tongue twister, but that's it

It's not even objectively one, I just messed up the first time I said it

msh210

15:20

@oAlt Tiraspol Transnistria

Sphinx

15:36

0

Q: Joined Progression (all possible ones)

Complete the last grid and tell me a suitable two-word phrase which answers the question below.

enigmatic-puzzle visual

Sphinx

15:56

1

Q: Just got a new job... huh?

(This is just a story, not actually real... obviously.) My name is Parangel. I recently got a new job at the office of Pazlo. I was stoked to see what that job was, but to my dismay, it was ordering files in a file cabinet. Ah well. They said every job here would be great, so I guess I should be ...

wordplay pattern sequence find-the-order

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