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00:00 - 21:0021:00 - 23:00

00:12
i suspect this is the intended definition for 'totalled'
00:35
oh right sorry
01:18
Does anyone have any recommended American-style cryptics? And/or easier British ones?
Ideally, solvable online - or if you know of any ways to easily convert a PDF to a form that can be solved online
01:56
kegler.gitlab.io/Beginner/Taylor this is a cool collection for beginner puzzles (though unfortunately not solvable in-browser)
Guardian publishes a "Quiptic" every Monday that's supposedly for beginners, although these are harder than the ones I linked above imo
.puz counts as solvable online; there are sites that can handle them
ah, awesome
02:21
@Mithical of course it’s Deus xD
@Ankoganit Their Quiptics are fun, not a huge fan of their regulars cryptics though. Some are pretty good clues but a lot of them feel kind eh.
1
Q: One number grid, two ways to divide it (Part 2)

BubblerFind a rectangular grid of the smallest area that satisfies the following: Each cell contains an integer between 1 and 4 inclusive. The grid follows the Fillomino rule: When the cells are divided into connected groups containing same numbers, each number belongs to a group of that many cells. ...

@oAlt Actually along that line, Migraine has M_E as well, but don’t think Nap gets OP would mean ME gets Nap
02:39
"nap gets me through..." would work just as well for the surface, so i think OP cluing just the letters OP is more likely than I or ME
@Stiv Migraine - I (OP) + GRAIN (the nap of a fabric is its grain, essentially) through ME
(edit: got the connectors in the explanation wrong the first time)
03:24
ahhhhhhhh
AHhhhhhhhhhhh
03:37
Ahh nap = grain, idk why I didn't think of that
Alternatively, nap gets OP through OP :)
04:03
I think sometimes we all need a nap to get us through ourselves
04:42
quite deep
 
2 hours later…
06:47
@RyanM Yep, well done!
Now you can see why I didn't want to use 'me' in the surface, I hope...
07:08
1
Q: How can the man remove the string loop hanging from his right hand?

Hemant Agarwal The man wishes to remove this string loop from his right hand without cutting the string. His right hand is inside his pocket and he isn't allowed to take out this hand from the pocket. He can only use his left hand. How can he do this? I have seen the solution but couldn't understand it. From: ...

07:36
CCCC: Dozing tailless donkey audibly jumps endlessly (6)
 
1 hour later…
08:50
The donkey is in a lot of pain because its tail went missing!
`assets`?
• Donkey can also be called `ass`
• **t**aill**ess** can kind of make `ets`
@TheEmptyStringPhotographer Nope, sorry
Which part would be the definition for "assets"?
Big formatting fail 🤦
can't use Markdown in multiline chat messages
think it's AS (tailless ass) plus LEEP (homophone of leap)
@Jafe yep!
(and leap being leaps, endlessly, but I figure that part was implied)
09:00
oh right
CCCC: Daredevil spectacle goes live – and how! (7)
@Jafe airs how
dangit now I need to think of another one
(at least assuming that's correct)
10:08
it is
CCCC: Dog, perhaps near Rhode Island delta, sorta, is a vessel for culture? (5, 4)
errrr, that was the wrong number. fixed now, apologies.
that's what I get for copy-pasting and trying to modify things without paying enough attention to what I was doing
10:43
@RyanM PETRI DISH (vessel for culture) = PET (Dog, perhaps) + R.I. + D (Delta) + ISH (sorta)
@Stiv Exactly!
Occurred to me after that I maybe should have gone with "...a cultural vessel?" to lean harder into the pun
Ahhh, no anagrams
Would that latter variant be within the bounds of fair cryptic cluing?
I haven't done enough to know how hard the puns go :-p
Likely fine with the question mark
Yeah, that version for sure needs the question mark. "a vessel for culture" ... could go either way, IMO, but I decided it'd be a little fairer with it (since it would be more accurate to say "cultures", "culturing", etc.)
11:02
CCCC: Massive office building, crowded in the past, breaks some time later (3,8)
@Stiv THE PENTAGON = the(pent (crowded) + ago (in the past))n (some time later)
@RyanM Exactly my intention. TIL it's the second-biggest office building in the world.
Same, actually!
(The first is in India)
But the Pentagon was top of the pile until about a year ago.
CCCC: Altered...or healed, perhaps (8)
this time I checked the number before posting it
11:30
0
Q: I don’t know what to buy!

The Empty String PhotographerMy roommate asked me to buy some stuff from the grocery store. “What am I supposed to get from the grocery store, sir?” I replied. “Man, get out and just buy the dang groceries, WILL YOU!?!” shouted my roommate. What am I supposed to buy? Hint:

0
Q: Fitting 10 pieces of pizza in a box

IvoInspired by Fitting the 9th piece into the pizza box 2 pizzas with radius r are each cut into 8 identical slices. 6 pieces were eaten so there are 10 pieces left. They need to be put in a square box without cutting or overlapping pieces. What is the minimal side length of the box, expressed in r?

11:51
0
Q: Seven different digits are placed in a row. The products of the first 3, middle 3 and last 3 are all equal. What is the middle digit?

Hemant Agarwal Seven different digits are placed in a row. The products of the first 3, middle 3 and last 3 are all equal. What is the middle digit ? Source: unknown

0
Q: Cryptic crossword: London calling

NarushiteliThis is a cryptic crossword. All clues given are across clues, to be initially entered as numbered in the grid. Coloured squares in the grid provide the down-element: each of five colours indicates that the letter that would go in that cell must be duplicated a prime number of rows below it (co...

 
3 hours later…
14:41
@RyanM Is this REFITTED? (altered, as an item of clothing might be) where 'cured, perhaps?' is a cryptic definition for 'making someone fit again'?
@Stiv not what I was going for (I believe you'll be more certain), but an interesting thought!
Yeah, I was definitely not certain there!
@Stiv also, note that it's "healed, perhaps", not "cured, perhaps?"
Ah yeah, typo in my explanation above, that's all
(this is not a commentary on whether or not that would or would not also fit)
14:54
maybe DOCTORED ddef?
@juicifer that's what I was going for
Much better fit that, and should have sprung to mind more given how often it's used as an anagrind!
nice
CCCC: Small round object found with real shell (5)
I wonder if it's a ddef of SHUCK. but the definitions seem too close for it to be one
@juicifer PEA+R_L, &lit?
15:00
Ahhhhhh
@Ankoganit yep!
nahhh no way I just got there toooo
Oh R__L is really clever
Do you guys have any tips for making &lits?
Oct 15, 2022 at 3:12, by juicifer
why do I keep doing this lmao
@PrinceNorthLæraðr This may sound too general but here goes: It's hard to make &lits out of many words, and it's easy for just some. I guess it's just a matter of finding the words that can conveniently yield an &lit rather than forcing an &lit out of a word that's hard to make an &lit out of. By convenient, I mean those where an element/s of the wordplay and the answer itself have a characteristic in common, like in the pearl clue (as a pea and pearl are both round and small)
@PrinceNorthLæraðr for the most part when I write an &lit it's because I've noticed wordplay for a particular word that would also work well with a definition. like for this one I noticed PEA at the beginning of the word PEARL and realized those were both similar in a couple ways
15:07
Thanks!
other than that it's usually pretty convenient to use indicators like "principally", "ultimately", and "at its core" since those don't fundamentally change the meaning of a sentence and can help you pick individual letters pretty easily
but yeah I rarely go into writing a clue like "I'm gonna make this one an &lit", it just sorta works out as I'm working on it
0
Q: Ying Yang 12x12 - Colombian Sudoku

Xavier CastilloHere is this week's Sudoku, my latest creation. It's a Colombian Sudoku that, despite its size, presents an extreme level of difficulty. Remember the rules: you must fill in the Sudoku on the left while also using the grid on the right, keeping in mind that the number of dots indicates how many n...

0
Q: White to play and mate in 3 moves..what are the moves?

Hemant Agarwal White to play and mate, moving each of the three pieces exactly once. What are the exact moves ? A puzzle by Henry Dudeney.

CCCC: After getting nude, mistakenly caused pregnancy that's unwanted (9)
Get yer head out of the gutter, good sir
15:18
don't worry it was completely platonic
"... and they were friends"
exactly
What a surface
Seriously
I don't even know where to start
15:24
clearly the pregnancy that's unwanted is the awkward silence (or pause) in our heads
@PrinceNorthLæraðr I think you should start by getting nude
@FBI we got em
😟
@juicifer Get your head out of the gutter good sir
I'm filing a restraining order
I have a hard time believing that "mistakenly caused pregnancy that's unwanted" is the def, it's a bit redundant, though I suppose it could still work
@Ankoganit unaborted?
15:28
@TheEmptyStringPhotographer explain?
“Mistakenly caused pregnancy”: the pregnancy was not aborted
so unaborted
But the wordplay?
I think it's in the right direction
I would think a mistakenly caused pregnancy would be more likely to be aborted if anything
UN(ABORT)ED*? Not sure if abort=after though
15:30
also I'm not sure that quite fits any plausible definition
Yeah
I do think mistakenly is an anagrind of NUDE
that's my working theory
0
Q: A tree, a coin, and a path. What do you expect?

DanOn an infinite complete binary tree, each edge is independently labelled $H$ or $T$ by flipping an unbiased coin. Let $X=$ the length of the longest path of consecutive $H$s starting from the root. Here is an example with $X=3$. What is the expectation of $X$?

@Ankoganit UNDESIRED = NUDE* + SIRED
@Stiv Yep!
15:32
ahhhh there we go
Great surface (as others have already said!)
Hehe thanks
I had LATERNUDE = ADULTER...and then it didn't quite match all the letters
That would involve an indirect anagram, which Ankoganit wouldn't do though
It'd have to be "gettingnude" which is too many letters
15:34
err, yes, I keep forgetting that.
Hehe no worries
fortunately, I remember that rule when setting.
sometimes I wonder if the camembert clue being our reference point was the correct choice
and/or haven't used anagrams. yet.
other times I make clues like this
15:35
lmao
@Ankoganit ...what?
May 22, 2023 at 15:39, by juicifer
CCCC: Dick inserted into pussy, producing something white, creamy, and delicious (9)
just search that word
that is incredibly cursed
thanks!
My bad, I'm checking in book right now in my school's library and then forgot to switch tabs
@juicifer I've never been so disturbed to read anything in my entire life
Why did you have to put delicious into the definition😭
actually delicious is part of the definition
because, you know, it's describing cheese
nothing else
No comento
sounds like your mind is in the gutter
15:42
Jun 17 at 18:42, by Stiv
That gives me CCCCPTSD every time...
lmao
@juicifer You caught me lacking
@oAlt literally "post" traumatic
Loll
Not part of CCCC: Eastern monkey eats yellow with knife while reading article about vowels (3,1,3)
15:45
@juicifer Is it more cursed that EJACULATE is also 9 letters, if you changed producing to "produce" you could've really messed up ppl's search engines
@PrinceNorthLæraðr oh so fun fact. We had a recurring thing on Stack Overflow where some questions would get, like, thousands of views, quickly, for no apparent reason.
@Stiv I didn't even see this... Backreading is a skill I still haven't mastered
It was very confusing: were people trying to cheat the view-count badges?
@oAlt HAHAH were you trying to solve it still?
Nah I just forgot that was a thing lol
15:48
Turns out, no: they used several "X"s in a row as a placeholder for something.
...bruh
Huh
Wait I'm confused
new HNQ hack just dropped
and apparently people (or...bots?) will click anything with several "X"s in a row in the title. For reasons that continue to elude me.
wow
the internet is a weird place
15:50
"That's enough internet for me today"
just kidding it's still morning for me @_@
I suspect that's the same reason the most popular roman numeral is 30
(disclaimer idk if that's actually true or not I just made that up)
2
That took me a minute
CCCC: "You can break the rules, and maybe fail and lose," I warn rival (3,2,4,2,4,3,3)
just search for "roman" and three Xs on your favorite search engine to find out (disclaimer: I do not advise doing this)
15:55
@RyanM That is NOT something I want to find out, good sir
Okay so
this feels like song lyrics
What are the chances this is a Pokemon reference
@RyanM Or a REALLY long anagram
break is the anagrind, obvs
It's actually "can"
:P
"fail and lose I warn rival" is the right amount of letters, so I think it's actually "maybe"
15:58
That would also be a good split with "you can break the rules"
Oh maybe it's a quote from the purge or something?
The letters are so short though
Entering scrabble mode
LAWS or LAW is a possible construction from those letters
And I assume V is one of the other 4 letters, since 3 letter V words are relatively uncommon
It's strange though - there's no Ts which is like one of the most common letters in the english language
so no "the"s anywhere, or "its"
and 1 s
16:14
"But if that is then why not" certainly fits the enumeration. As to whether it's a sensible phrase, let alone a possible answer, no comment. (It's not)
Yeah, noting the lack of Ts I just mentioned
I think "you can break the rules" and LAW(S) being found withitn "fail and lose I warn rival" makes me pretty confident it's an anagram
(My answer wasn't a serious attempt, btw. I just put random words together and pretended it was a sensible phrase)
also not a CCCC: Not a puzzle, and without odd-tailed Spanish snacks (6)
"IF" is a word I've been messing with
Well, okay, I think we can do some brute force decoding here by starting with possible 2 letter words, because there's not very many
IF, AS, IS, IN, AN, NO SO, AD I believe are the only real contenders
Of that list, S only appears once, so it can't be both AS and IS, for example
16:21
why not eg WE or OF
Oh I didn't see those
also ON
Also DO
I missed quite a few
OR
Okay I just alphabetized the anagram, I have AAADEFIIILLLNNORRSVW
And I believe the full list of 2 letter words that are likely are:
AD AN AS DO IF IN IS NO OF ON OR SO WE (let me know if I missed one)
Only 1 e too, this is quite an odd letter distribution
NO LAWS IN
Hm, that leaves an awkward position for F and V though with the remaining letters, because they don't make good 3 letter word, though FIVE is possible
NO LAWS IF?
16:39
Having a nice time, North?
I wonder if it's "All Is Fair in Love and War"!
Checking letters
gotta be
nice find
Did you check...?
Seems to fit!
16:41
Well, it is indeed correct, so well done for persisting! Thought that lots of little words might make it hard to use anagram tools...
It was a bit challenging but then I saw war and love
Hope it wasn't too arduous!
I was like "hold on, isn't there a saying something like that?"
I thought the saying was "there are no rules in love and war" so I didn't pursue that line of thinking at first
You spotted 'LAWS' I see. For a while I was actually toying with beginning the fodder with 'and laws'. In fact, for a long time I was using "all's" rather than "all is" but I needed the extra 'I' in the end to make a nicer surface.
hehe
The whole time the only thing running through my head was "There ain't no laws, when you're drinking Claws"
iykyk
I'm glad I solved that before I finished my shift, it would've driven me crazy if I had to drive home unable to work on solving it :P
Hey I actually have a clue prepared! This one didn't make it into the crossword because I changed the board a little bit, so here you go
CCCC: Hazardous drug found in Zurich - so instantly recalled? (5)
16:52
0
Q: Can you use all 26 letters across four 7-letter words?

Frisky DingoI'm wondering if there's a set of four 7-letter words that employ all 26 English letters. That's 28 letters total, allowing for 2 duplicates. I would even count getting 25 a win (see below for my 22- to 24-letter sets). Please use YAWL for the wordlist. Some of my by-hand (and stolen) attempts [w...

17:12
0
Q: An Anagram Brainteaser

Frisky DingoAn Anagram Brainteaser An anagram (for the uninitiated) is a word made up of the rearranged letters of another word. There exists a word that is an anagram of itself. In fact, there exist THREE. Two show up in the OED, along with the root word of the third. What are they?

Interestingly, NIOSH< deals with hazardous drugs… but it isn't a hazardous drug itself.
17:31
"Statin" is almost in that... but is too long anyway
17:55
@msh210 this was the intended answer. I realized the definition might’ve been a little inaccurate - in the pharmacy we just refer to the hazardous drugs or NIOSH class drugs as just NIOSH for short, not realizing it stood for National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
I suppose I could argue NIOSH is sort of the “hazardous drugs” (NIOSH drugs), but isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on
Sorry for the slightly questionable definition
 
2 hours later…
19:44
@PrinceNorthLæraðr ahh got it, I wasn't aware of that slang
It might be a very niche pharmacy slang
fair enough. I suspect many others (including me) have used niche slang in C4s
20:09
CCCC: The reader, at the end of basically nothing, landed (3)
@Mithical nice to see you
I think it's YOU but not sure where the u comes from
At least "end of basically" Y and nothing is O
landed: "owning much land, especially through inheritance." like an IOU?
Oh, owning, not owing
@msh210 o/
maybe U is niche slang for landed in the msh210 household
This is operating under the assumption that "The reader" is the def
Noun: u-land n
  1. (dated) a developing country, a third-world country
Yeah this is definitely what Msh was going for /s
unless the def is "nothing landed" and is like... FLY or something???
Or perhaps it's "the reader" (U?) at the end of basically so like BASICALLYU or basically nothing +U def landed
"to land" can mean to acquire, or to get
Or it's "The reader" at the end
ER or just R?
20:25
Robert the locksmith makes a game (6)
Or it's U, the reader (YOU) at the end (U)
Y(O)U???
@PrinceNorthLæraðr In the sidebar from another room, this looks like you're indignant at being betrayed by someone here.
You're sort of dancing around it.
@Mithical Hahahaha
@msh210 Nothing's landing though
If this is an &lit, then "The reader, landed" is indicating some sort of position placement
YO(+U), if landed means to place at the bottom, like landed on the ground
I'm not sure how the entire clue works as a definition to YOU, but that's the best wordplay I can deduce
Yeah okay YO(+U) makes a lot of sense from that lens
@PrinceNorthLæraðr I don't think it's an &lit because a) the rest of the definition wouldn't make sense and b) msh (almost) always indicates an &lit with a !
but then I have no better ideas as to how to squeeze a U out of this clue, so
20:41
Also "the reader" would still be the bulk of the definition
which would be kind of double dipping into both U and YOU
I'm trying to see if there's anything else about the surface
Reader at the end of basically|nothing landed
> "Fanny Adams" became slang for mediocre mutton,[27] stew, scarce leftovers and then anything worthless.
Cryptic crosswords often use abbreviations to clue individual letters or short fragments of the overall solution. These include: Any conventional abbreviations found in a standard dictionary, such as: "current": AC (for "alternating current"); less commonly, DC (for "direct current"); or even I (the symbol used in physics and electronics) Roman numerals: for example the word "six" in the clue might be used to indicate the letters VI The name of a chemical element may be used to signify its symbol; e.g., W for tungsten The days of the week; e.g., TH for Thursday Country codes; e.g., "Switzerland...
So "basically nothing" could be FA?
Hm I need to move away from YOU because I'm not getting anywhere
Unless "landed" is "touchdown" which people often make with the shape of like a U
But that seems to be a bit of a stretch
Long and muscular (189819)
The most ridiculous crossword clue I came up with
20:57
I think the thing that's throwing me off is "at" and "of". "The reader at the end" makes sense and "end of basically" makes a lot of sense, but "at the end of basically" doesn't really mean take the end of BASICALLY, and "the reader at the end of" doesn't mean take the end of READER
00:00 - 21:0021:00 - 23:00

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