Puzzles Etc.

That's the hardest part of all of this, imo.

fondor

Was my first one. If you're thinking of some improvements, feel free to share them. So I can try to consider them in the future.

Wait was trained agent solved?

fondor

yes

Just waiting one more moment for LeppyR64 before accepting the answer

Yeah, the guy had to take a certain train

Incidentally, the train happened to have a Coke advertisement on it, though fondor wasn't aware of this.

3:05 PM

Anyone working on any language puzzle?

snickers

Anyone working on my puzzle? he asks excitedly

@Koa You should have told me about your puzzle, ahead of time. It could have been one of the puzzles in Cryptos' place =D. (Though you would have had to have someone die, per my storyline. =D)

Which one? @Khale_Kitha

The Enchanted Cave

3:10 PM

That's gonna be its own series I'm working on :p

hah

@GordonAllocman I would have tried to solve your puzzle but enigmatic and cryptic are not my criteria.

oh

@question_asker a new clue on the sculptures puzzle

yeah, a non-clue

numbers are missing from the other stones.

yeah

sadly, nothing we've not already guessed

3:11 PM

I really didn't think the "bit/century" part of my environment puzzle would be so difficult

@manshu it's only enigmatic in the sense that I don't explicitly tell you what you need to do

@GordonAllocman oh...maybe that's why I am secretly trying to solve it.

that rebus is already nearly a shitshow, answer-wise

which means it's probably hit HNQ

indeed

lol

true

3:15 PM

@Khale_Kitha what does that block thing mean at the end of your answer?

Literally first page of HNQ

answer?

like 3rd most popular question on Stack Exchange

@Khale_Kitha on the agent one

the thing that's the black and shaded blocks

Oh, nothing. It was just an attempt at trying to figure out the newspaper part - I'll be removing it.

3:16 PM

And Gamow's question is also there.

@Khale_Kitha ah! OK, I was like, squinting really hard, trying to make out a word or something

haha

Yeah, I tried it with a great number of number series

There questions shouldn't be represented as good question of PSE on HNQ

@manshu to be fair, this happens with every SE

it's not like someone is hand-picking these puzzles. it's literally just whatever gets clicked on a lot

My favorite HNQ was from superuser named "Can't find clit"

3:18 PM

YES

I screenshotted that

:/

what?

All the good comments got removed though, I guess they don't like fun over there

yeah

lmfao gamow's question got a new answer... which is the same as the existing answer

@fondor @LeppyR64 Okay, I've added Leppy's answer to mine, without taking his entire answer. It's still referencing his post, for those who want the full process.

Q: Our puzzling friend 2: Electric Puzzaloo

I didn't look at it..damn

@question_asker wanna work on a puzzle?

10

Thank you guys for helping us figure out what activity my friend wanted to do over here! Unfortunately the puzzles didn't stop there. When we asked him to give us the location of where he wanted to go, he gave us this instead: Lorem ipsum vestibulum elementum sapien quis pulvinar Quisque...

enigmatic-puzzles

3:20 PM

@manshu I'm still trying to figure out @JonathanAllan's puzzle

No matter how many times I look at that one I can't find a place to start.

same here

I'm off to bed guys, night

The words are separated by 1, or 2, spaces, but never more. So I'm not sure.

Night, KoA

@KoA good night

3:21 PM

night

I've tried taking the letters on either side of just the 2-spaced ones - and just the 1-spaced ones, with no luck.

Or just the letters on one side

Or even just one of the words, on each side of the 2-spaced ones.

link please!!

@Khale_Kitha @fondor Yeah chat alerts are slow to the IOS app. I'm fine with the resolution :)

Yeah, I've seen it take 10-15m, on occasion, for them

on Android

@GordonAllocman Which is your puzzle? I would like to.

3:22 PM

it's instantaneous on pc

That one, linked just above.

Yes, because you are in the chatroom. The apps get push notifications.

My firefox addon can sometimes delay by up to 30s because it checks that often.

haha I got called out on my nitpicky comment on the sculpture park question

lol

Though I'm not sure I agree with you

as 3, 8, and 9 are missing

no

because it starts at 674, right?

ah, right, the description has the rest of the numbers

I forgot about that

3:25 PM

which means it contains 683 ... 699

I wish I had some clue what "naively thinking" was supposed to mean.

so technically those numbers are on the stone, and if—as one of the commenters notes—the numbers aren't actually a sequence and just coincidentally seem like one, then it's immaterial that they're missing

(but chances are that it is a sequence, I'm just going by the statements that have been made)

talking about sculpture puzzle?

yeah

I took a stab at that puzzle and got absolutely nowhere, besides figuring out the snakes and ladders part

3:27 PM

@GordonAllocman same as me.

I did find an interesting non-related fact though haha

And that ivy looks like a guy is dancing.

Random bit of amusing non-helpful information

books.google.com/…

hehe

puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/32806/17250 if this ends up being the selected answer and somebody defends it with "see? it's elegant" I'm giving up forever

3:30 PM

That whole "puzzle" should just go away, but whatever

@question_asker No, don't do that. Accidents happen sometimes.

I agree!

but the puzzle has specifically been defended with "it's got an elegant solution!" and if "elegant solution" means "you only need two variables! he put three in there!!!", I want to die.

@question_asker Yup. It happens in math literally all the time.

what does. what are you talking about.

Many things cancel out to give us a neat equation.

3:34 PM

@question_asker The first problem with Gamow's latest is that it does not specify that the same route was taken back - therefore too broad as it has infinite solutions, never mind the puzzle vs problem debate

these kinds of questions are solved everyday on math se

@manshu uh, I'm not an idiot. I've done math before.

I know

Anyone working on my puzzle, don't ignore the hints already given

place X and Y an infinitesimal distance apart at the same altitude and stay in Y for 1 hr 20 (or 9 hr 20 depending upon interpretation)

3:35 PM

@JonathanAllan I mean, that's definitely true, but I'd be OK with calling that a trivial fix.

Well he should at least fix that IMO

"When walking in the plane" his speed doesn't matter because he is on a plane

all he'd have to do is add a few words and it wouldn't be broad anymore, but it would still just be a case of "lol I added an unnecessary variable! that's what makes it a puzzle!!"

@JonathanAllan are you referring to the hint you deleted?

@JonathanAllan or a different puzzle of yours?

@manshu why would you want to delete the answer duder? It has homour, funniness and a witty answer haha it's to good — Rahul Srinath 57 secs ago

He is calling his own answer "good".

oh you do mean the other one. I'm having a panic attack looking at that community wiki answer

3:39 PM

How should I approach this situation? :p

@manshu I dunno, I voted to delete that one before

@question_asker sorry when I said what?

@JonathanAllan the thing about not ignoring the hints

"But Russians can't afford the motorbikes" i'm dying

wtf

imdb.com/title/tt0120689/reviews-1131

3:42 PM

@question_asker I know not to what your refer

Q: A motorboat going downstream overcame a raft at a point A (Kinematics question)

This question also have an elegant solution. So maybe I should vote it for migration to PSE

2

A motorboat going downstream overcame a raft at a point A. $T$ = $60$ min later it turned back and after some time passed the raft at a distance $l$ = $6$ km from the point $A$. Find the flow velocity. Assuming duty of motorboat is constant. This is a question from IE irodov (mechanics). ...

algebra-precalculus systems-of-equations physics classical-mechanics kinematics

@Khale_Kitha fantastic review 5/7

just....wha...just.....I give up

Gamow didn't specify how long the flight took, unsolvable

I'm just worried that the answer to your puzzle is going to be Flat Top Manor, Gordon. LoL

3:44 PM

I don't think they have a bowling alley there

They do

@question_asker The hint I deleted on my puzzle was simply because I placed it on the wrong puzzle LOL

oh damn

@JonathanAllan Oh, oops, I'm an idiot - I mixed up you and @GordonAllocman's avatars

ah OK

3:45 PM

"When the Blue Ridge Parkway came through and the government took over the property several buildings on the land were torn down. These included houses for workers, a building where washing took place, and a single lane bowling alley. The bowling alley was located in a small building that resembled an elongated outhouse.
Only men used the bowling alley, they would roll the ball down the lane and have to walk down the lane themselves to retrieve the ball and set the pins back up. To stop the ball a large bear skin hung at on the back wall."

lol

Rather - they did :P

Ok, well it isn't there :P

I love you @manshu

:)

Had to go find it in the review queue to help delete it, manshu

lol

Wait @question_asker were you asking me about a deleted hint?

3:48 PM

Also, still trying to figure out what homour is... lol

humour

I know :P

@GordonAllocman haha no, I was asking @JonathanAllan, because I thought he was the one who said the thing about the thing, so it was his puzzle I was looking at.

but that's humor - not homour

hummous

3:49 PM

humour is another spelling of humor just like colour

yet, homour is still not :P

homour simpson

right but he probably meant to spell humour

I have finally found the example to delete all the math problems. It is this. YAY

Yes, yes, I know, lol

You can't trust math problems by Max Payne. You have to take into account Bullet Time.

2

3:51 PM

I'm not joking though about nearly having a panic attack looking at that CW answer on @JonathanAllan's number puzzle

haha, I thought that might get starred :P

he's got a drinking problem. unreliable narrator and all that

Hey, he lost his whole family.

I can't play games like that, now that I have kids...heh

So you are waiting for them to grow up?

If I cared more about video games, I'd say "thank god I'm not having kids"

3:53 PM

Has nothing to do with the content rating - I just can't play games, or watch movies, with that type of storyline, very easily.

ohhh, I see what you mean

LoL, my son was playing a game on the iPad, the other day (he's 2)

And he told me, "Daddy, the worm is scary!!"

I looked over to help him, and his little game had him fighting a cobra.

Rofl

aww

finally found it

It kept swaying back and forth, darting forward, waiting for him to "punch" it.

3:55 PM

@Khale_Kitha to be fair, a cobra is one of the scariest worms

haha

@Khale_Kitha looks over to see son playing the original snake game

Damn you, Gordon!

You're going to make me want to play the game again - and I never finished Max Payne 3, yet :P

I love that type of narration, lol

I'm currently playing Dark Souls 2, and every time I make a bunch of progress through a BS area, the game is "heh, bet you thought we couldn't make it harder"

haha

Never tried the DS series

3:58 PM

Not for those with high blood pressure

It's a game that is brutally tough and gives you little to no direction in what you are supposed to be doing to beat it

That part of the game wouldn't bother me

The part, in the description, marked "Sensory assault" would bother me.

@GordonAllocman I'm working on your puzzle. I've got something but I don't know if it's right or not yet. Question: Are the spaces on the ends of your lines for PSE formatting or intentional?

I checked in edit, and they appear to be for formatting (though he can answer)

Though, personally, I think that the carriage returns are important.

Possible subdividing words, or letters

0

A: Uphill and downhill

Assuming the question is: Harry walked from $X$ to $Y$ in $8$ hours, then walked back to $Y$. The total duration of the trip was $9$ hours $20$ minutes ($\frac{28}3$ hours). How far apart are $X$ and $Y$? Then we can fit, for example: We could also fit, for example: Or:

^ @question_asker @KoA

interesting q_a - I wondered what would happen if I chose "improve edit"

(puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/32773/…)

I'm glad that it doesn't count as an edit rejection for him, for me doing so

I think KoA's in bed

4:17 PM

also my last post @LeppyR64

@JonathanAllan ayyyyyyy

I have pi rep.

@mansu niiiice

@JonathanAllan Sorry, what?

I have 6 silver badges which makes it 3,1416. And it is the approx value of pi in 5 significant digits.

4:27 PM

@LeppyR64 see my answer to Uphill and downhill, posted above

Oh, you were referring to my comment to KoA. I had no real vested interest in it, more that if he was making a comment like that, it needed more support. I think all of the answers have sufficiently shot some holes in the question. :)

@LeppyR64 OK

@manshu with rep, gold, and silver badges (treating two digit numbers like two one-digit numbers, I get oeis.org/…

can't do anything with all three levels of badges though

My one says the exact same thing I said oeis.org/…

3035 8s 36b -> 3,35,8,36 -> oeis.org/…

4:35 PM

wow, a fourth close vote on that gamow puzzle

this might be a historical occasion

of course, all he'd have to do is get four people from Math Problem Rep Farm Crew to reopen it

@LeppyR64 PSE formatting

since it's in a code block I might be able to get rid of them, let me see

@LeppyR64 fixed it

@question_asker It has happened before. His question got closed and no one reopened it.

My incorrect answer to the rebus now has more rep gain than the question itself, despite it having 19 upvotes

@manshu I'll believe that when I see it

But I can't find it right now.

dammit...it was reopened later

4:44 PM

see

puzzling.stackexchange.com/posts/27804/revisions

told you

reminds me of....where is ZD these days?

"Last seen yesterday"

8 rep this month, though - not participating

4:46 PM

@Khale_Kitha It means that 1 upvote and 1 downvote :p

at least I can vtc that problem now

Maybe

Could be two upvotes and 1 downvote - or 1 upvote and two downvotes, or two upvotes and two downvotes

considering the types of upvotes/downvotes

@question_asker You just did it?

(Considering that he hasn't posted a puzzle, two of those are out, though)

@manshu I just VTCed

4:47 PM

Noice.

What do you think about these kinds of questions: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/28439/…

eating dal-baati

I think they're boring as hell

true

I mean, they're the kind of thing that—to me—is maybe interesting-ish the first time you see it, but there's literally nothing "aha!" about it, and unlike actual puzzley puzzles, there's no "application"

I personally think most math problems are a bit boring, since either you have the level of math knowledge to solve it yourself, or the answer will just be way over your head

@GordonAllocman Yeah, that's sort of the baseline that I come from in my dislike of math puzzles.

4:51 PM

*Some exclusions may apply

and I don't think that math puzzles should be disallowed because I don't like them, but it's demonstrably the case that we close puzzles for being too math-problemy, except in cases where the poster is one of a small handful of people.

there's nothing puzzley about that 2016 problem

@question_asker The application part in your message made me think that by making puzzles we might be helping many secret agencies to encrypt their code.

haha

well if I'm unwittingly being a spook I want to get paid for it

encryption is similar to math in terms of going over my head, but often the solution to the puzzle is still understandable even if I don't know how they figured out the encryption

yeah

and usually encryption is at least a little more than "heres the numbers, hope you know the equation"

4:53 PM

@question_asker If you get paid for it, you wouldn't be doing it unwittingly, therefore you can't get paid for it. Q.E.D.

A: A calculation error made a rebus

even if that's all that decrypting really boils down to, usually people put more work into the actual puzzle

@GordonAllocman now that's not true at all - I could get paid for it this second, and I still would have done the work unwittingly :P

OK, this HAS to be the answer to the rebus:

0

May be, Again just giving my perception on it as I just could not resist answering :)

@GordonAllocman Perfect. So now that confirms that I understand both of the hints, but now I don't know what I have :)

A calculation error made a rebus which might be too broad

it's not too broad, since none of those answers fit

@LeppyR64 Thanks to you pointing that out, I got to push it to the front page again without having to add a hint :P

brb got a meeting

4:58 PM

brb eating dinner

@GordonAllocman If I don't figure it out in a while I'll throw up a partial.

heyyyyy, the math problem is on hold! Let's see how long it lasts before Math Crew just reopens it

not even one minute before the first reopen vote

sigh

we'll probably be penalized for voting to close that one

Why do I not see it in the reopen queue?

I didn't think this through. It's not safe to get out of my home now.

I dunno, but I see stuff with close votes on it all the time that isn't in the close queue

GentlePurpleRain

5:10 PM

Not sure, but I think maybe the queues only get questions that have sat for a while without sufficient votes?

Or they need a certain number of votes before they make it to the queue?

yeah, I thought maybe it was a # of votes thing

@GentlePurpleRain One vote is enough for that.

what is it about rebuses that attract people who straight up don't know what a rebus is.

I'm really really really not trying to be mean, but gosh golly.

back

ah for cryin out loud, I think the new one is correct

5:17 PM

That actually might be it

It's a time thing, from what I've seen

Guess I was pretty close

I'll pat myself on the back for that one

If wesley is right on the musical rebus, I never had a chance

god damnit, it wasn't correct....

*the calculation one that is

(probably going to regret jumping in on this, but...)

wait who is wesley

How are you @humn

5:27 PM

hello @humn!

Why all the hate on math puzzles?

I have a theory (semi serious)

Oh, hey, manshu and question_answerer!

(back to the theory in a second)

wesley is in here, all the time, q_a :)

I found a song for both of you: (back in a bit)

honestly, I just find (most) math puzzles boring, because they're just like "here's some numbers and a contrived scenario, hope you know the right equation to plug them into"

so it's really just the equivalent of knowing trivia, but for math.

but what I rail against here is the fact that we're, as a site, apparently fine with people like Gamow posting literal math problems like you'd find in a textbook but if a new user posts something like that it gets closed immediately.

o/

5:30 PM

@Khale_Kitha But I was asking in regard to the rebus

\o

I dont think Gordon meant 'wesley' as an answer

@question_asker puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/32801/…

oh, but you corrected yourself and said 'calculation'

so I was looking on the calculation rebus and didn't see any answers posted by wesley

That was regarding the fact that the one we thought was right was wrong

Sorry about the confusion

I referenced 2 different rebuses in that block of text

5:32 PM

ah

what do you want to bet that the strikethrough is pronounced

strike one for nothing? :D

I think someone guessed that

Ah, no idea - not looking at the puzzle, haha

I mean, all of my guesses had "not" or "no" or "strike"

but then OP claimed that the strikethrough isn't pronounced

but ... I am positive it will be pronounced in some way. otherwise it's pointless in a rebus.

( Distraction, a piece of music that combines manshu's interplanetary travels with question_answerer's variable-naming style: Intergalactic Laxative )

5:36 PM

we know its not pronounced "per se" :P

hahaha

I just mean, dude can't say "'not number one for nothing' isn't right because you're pronouncing the strikethrough as 'not'" AND that the strikethrough has meaning that will end up in the answer.

if the s/t has meaning, it's just as "pronounced" as the 'not' in that answer.

(back to math) true, the close standards regarding math are not applied equally

but i think the problem is that they're applied at all

and it's such a small number of puzzles to begin with

@humn yeah, this is the core of my issue

...........................................^^^^ and it is well taken

i just wish that math had never been singled out to begin with

I don't think it matters that much that we have "easy math puzzles" here, but if it does matter, and if our wording is that we don't accept any math problems, then we shouldn't accept any.

5:46 PM

right ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^, which is why i disagree with the policy

@LeppyR64 good work, you are getting pretty warm

@humn I'm always kind of astounded at the kinds of things that people characterize as big problems around here, like we don't have so little activity on this site that one person could moderate it.

@GordonAllocman Oh I can feel it, I just can't connect it.

not sure which big problems you mean, q_a, not quite up with the times

@humn just in general, the rationalizations we have for some of the policies tend to be based on hypothetical issues we might someday have (if we were a big website, but we aren't and it will take us a long time to get there)

5:50 PM

Man my comment went right over that guys head on my question...

(i do see that a solution to a puzzle is afoot, no need to take time out for my ongoing concern right now)

i see what you mean, q_a

14

Q: A Strange Correspondence

I voted to delete some questions on another SE site from two users due to them being garbled nonsense.* However when I got to the sixth I thought something looked suspicious, it looked to me like an encrypted correspondence since all the titles were fairly normal but all the posts were just stri...

story cipher language

@humn I'm still staring at this one

right up your alley, q_answerer!

@GordonAllocman So it seems.

2016 might be a hint, Leppy

Or just a joke, depending.

5:55 PM

about Strange Correspondence, a strange coincidence:

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server, colloquially called Apache (/əˈpætʃiː/ ə-PA-chee), is the world's most used web server software. Originally based on the NCSA HTTPd server, development of Apache began in early 1995 after work on the NCSA code stalled. Apache played a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web, quickly overtaking NCSA HTTPd as the dominant HTTP server, and has remained most popular since April 1996. In 2009, it became the first web server software to serve more than 100 million websites. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of...

thats the first thing i thought of when i saw apache, but couldn't really tie it in

same here