The Sphinx's Lair

humn

02:57

Not a rddl but a morning quickie from a crossword puzzle:

Without internet help, what is the shortest English word that contains the segment RLDL ?

Areeb

03:10

Worldly?

@humn

humn

That's the one, Areeb! It really looked funny in the puzzle.

Areeb

Yay! What was the general theme of the puzzle?

humn

No theme this time, it's a "Sunday Puzzle" but not the New York Times one.

A previous one had another goodie that Manshu got here immediately, though I thought it was tough if it had to be discreet: wimp: _ _ s s y

Areeb

Oh cool. I don't think I've ever willingly done a full crossword puzzle. Haha if you've hung around high schoolers you'd get that pretty fast

humn

Uh, discreet word? (might depend on which high school, at mine the one i thought of was naughty, but the correct answer wasn't)

Areeb

03:19

Oh. I thought you meant that __ssy was the answer

humn

hm, not a bad idea for a variation on normal crosswords:

words that include blanks that can be filled in more than one way

maybe they would have to be blank in the completed puzzle

(the logical extreme would be a puzzle that has to remain all blanks)

Areeb

A crossword with all blanks? That would be interesting to say the least

humn

i was mainly coming by for a moment but, now that it's you, Areeb, i'm thinking of just filling the "steganography tribond" puzzle that Dave and you almost completed once, if you happen to remember

(yeah, an all blanks crossword, everyone could pretend to know what it took to not fill it in, including the poser themself)

Areeb

I was thinking of revisiting that one day! I just never got around to it

humn

you probably got all the millions of votes from it already that it'll ever provde

Areeb

03:26

Haha. It was an interesting puzzle. You conveyed the hints nicely with that image

Though we never figured out the mirrored typing

humn

you caught on to the gap being one of the 3 images

right, why would an imprint be fully mirrored? (as opposed to typewriter ribbon, where it is merely in reverse order)

wasn't that one of your earlier posts? glad that you've found plenty of others in the meanwhile

(don't need to ask, can snoop)

Areeb

Sadly I'm not versed in 1960-80s tech. I suppose it could be if the imprint was looked at from the other side of the paper

It was my 6th answer

humn

yeh, the trivia part is a little unfair, but it is stocked in a bunch of stores still

and your 6th answer is so close, just doesn't explain why the imprint is backwards

(oh , misunderstood what you meant by 6th, still close though)

Areeb

Yeah. A quick google search right now lead me to a webpages about mono prints

humn

(let's see...my search is finding mostly mono phonograph records)

Areeb

03:36

Phonograph records?

humn

Gramophone record

A gramophone record (phonograph record in American English) or vinyl record, commonly known as a record, is an analogue sound storage medium in the form of a flat polyvinyl chloride (previously shellac) disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. Phonograph records are generally described by their diameter in inches (12", 10", 7"), the rotational speed in rpm at which they are played (16 2⁄3, 33 1⁄3, 45, 78), and their time capacity, determined by their diameter and speed (LP [long playing], 12-inch disc, 33...

i should've looked for monospace . . . "mono" matched "monaural"

Areeb

How does a search for "monoprint" lead to that. I just found a bunch of inverted photos, none of hem had text though

humn

rats, even "monospace imprint" didn't show a correct example

if you'd like to fill in the answer, i could find a picture as a hint here

(hah, found a good one and will try to disguise it from image lookup)

Areeb

Ooh ok

humn

(first try failed, google images found it instantly)

Areeb

03:45

XD

Try tiling the image a few times

humn

good idea! (2nd and 3rd tries also failed)

Areeb

Google's evolving, run the singularity is almost here!

humn

might as well give in to it

wah, i'll just plop the picture here and let you cheat if you want

Areeb

I couldn't cheat if I wanted to, I'm on my phone

humn

Areeb

03:52

Is that a name tag?

That makes so much sense!

humn

been used for that

Areeb

So I need that technology?

humn

you still have to guess what imprint would be mirror image related to it

Areeb

?

humn

(probably don't need this technology for anything, but it does make great permanent labels, in braille too)

Areeb

03:54

Oh it's the middle imprint

If you were to press that name tag against paper, it would be in capitals and reversed

humn

good one, didn't even think of that!

that would be great to include in the answer, but the intended answer relates more closely to an imprint on a handwriting pad or typewriter ribbon (actually it's not so much an imprint on the ribbon as much as a lack of ink)

Areeb

I found a technology called an "embosser" but it doesn't seem to connect well

humn

sure? you're probably just missing a realization

well, here's the last hint, the labels are adhesive

tell you what, if you fill in Dave's answer, I'll set a bounty for your answer and award the check mark to Dave

Areeb

I see how it could work but how would it leave behind an imprint

humn

what does an adhesive label leave behind?

Areeb

04:00

Sticky stuff

Or residue

humn

something else, very akin to typewriter ribbon (not an exact analogy though)

Areeb

Oh oh oh

The paper the label was on!

humn

maybe, maybe not after all, depends what you mean

Areeb

I guess Imma go edit Daves answer now

Like you peel an adhesive label off a piece of paper

humn

thank you!!! @ding me when it's ready

(by the way, if you see this is in time, the historical note is that these all use office equipment that, as with modern steganography, has been overrun by computerization <--- @Areeb)

Areeb

04:08

@humn I edited the answer before I read your note :(. I can add that in after my edit is accepted of course.

humn

sure, I'll do my part in the meanwhile

Areeb

Well that was a good days work! I managed to finish that puzzle once an for all, even though you basically walked me through it

humn

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa, have to wait 23 hours to complete the bounty. ....just have find other puzzles in the meanwhile

i'm impressed how handily you handled this on your handheld

Areeb

Haha very punny! The SE app is pretty well rounded and easy to use

humn

(think i'll mosey along for now, though) Nice to bump into you again and thank you for getting that puzzle started and completed!

Areeb

04:15

Haha no problem. I'll be heading off as well. Cya

humn

` '

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

2

Q: Steganography TriBond™

These three have a technological attribute — me — in common: • What does each of these represent? • How have these figured into actual criminology puzzles? (No need to cite specific cases.) • What am I? No wordplay is afoot and completen...

Jamal Senjaya

05:41

I confuse to create a good wording, I need help :

suppose I have this sequence 34 35 36 37 38 39
now I want the puzzle solver to take the 2nd, 3rd and 5th from the sequence (35,36 and 38)
2,3 and 5 are 3 first primes.

How to write it in good english.

Rosie F

06:54

@Randal'Thor A slightly different scenario is where the web site describes a technique & has the puzzle as an exercise. If someone posted here both the puzzle & a link to the source, anyone following the link will learn what technique to apply. How about saying that it's good etiquette for the OP to say to the effect of "I didn't make this puzzle. I found it on the web, but a link would give a clue. I'll add a link once the puzzle's solved."?

@humn Looks like Dymo tape.

humn

That's exactly the brand I still have, Rosie F, and stumbling on it recently made me think of the puzzle.

Have you actually used it, @RosieF?

(Areeb hasn't finished the edit yet, though, and will get the bounty while the about-to-be accepted answer will be accepted. Areeb put a lot of effort into the solution all along.)

[back to the the other side, type with you another time]

Rosie F

@humn I had a Dymo label-maker, the same model as the pistol-shaped one on the Wiki page, some time in the 1970s. Trouble was that the glue would eventually lose its adhesiveness and the tape would come off and resume the curved shape it had on the roll.

humn

07:14

And when the surface was soft plastic, the label sometimes didn't peel off but would distort the surface. Good times!

wythagoras

11:18

@Deusovi You can install ChatJax, see meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/1088/…. Many users on Math.SE use it. (Although I don't think MathJax is used very often here)

Will

12:04

@LukasRotter @Randal'Thor I've cracked the Enigma but I'd feel shitty posting an answer piggybacking so closely off of everyone else's hard work :)

Also, @LukasRotter I kinda hate you (not really) since I had to edit the library I use for Enigma Machine simulation to actually decode anything. (It lacked an older feature of the Enigma Machine Friedrich used)

Lukas Rotter

@Will It's up to you :P I'll accept & award the bounty to the first answer which has the correct solution. I wouldn't necessarily think it's immoral. If the other people wouldn't want others to see their work/learn from it, they wouldn't have posted answers/comments.

@Will Which library did you use? Since I used my own encrypter I probably underestimated the difficulty of finding a decoder/library that supports the enigma I used.

Will

I use Py-Enigma (I don't want to spoil anything re: what's required, so I'll link to the documentation)

https://py-enigma.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference.html

Hopefully you can spot what's missing :)

Though I can't say I understand Friedrich's mapping choice there

I would've thought 0 mapped to what 1 maps to

Lukas Rotter

12:19

@Will I originally intended to do that, but since ring settings are often displayed as 1-26 and not 0-25, I thought I should stay consistent. But true, starting from 0 would've made more things possible.

Will

@LukasRotter He's in the ocean off the coast near an... umm... port... if I've done that right?

Maria Deleva

And the whole setup is just a trap to capture escaping logicians. None of the doors actually lead out.

2

I thought I would share that with you

Lukas Rotter

@Will Nope... Honestly no idea how you got that :D I just used google maps for the coordinates

Will

... so did I

Lukas Rotter

12:35

@Will You forgot one one :P

Will

oh I sure did

Is Friedrich not enjoying those fetish parties?

Lukas Rotter

@Will Just looked at their website now, lol. Guess he isn't.

I'll wait a few hours before awarding the bounty so the question attracts a little more views and upvotes for you :P

Will

12:53

@LukasRotter I'm also questioning Friedrich's choice of username - not only did the M3 ditch reflector A as you mentioned, but wheels VI-VIII were only used by Kriegsmarine with the M4.

Lukas Rotter

@Will Then Friedrich must have forgotten that (presumably because of the massive amount of alcohol. Or maybe he isn't such a fan of the original M3, and only likes M3's with build year >= 1939

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF That sounds like an excellent compromise!

Dammit, @LukasRotter. I had everything exactly right except for the reflector wheel not being A, since there was no A option on any of the online Enigma resources I found :-/

Beastly Gerbil

13:09

Been a pretty low key day so far. I mean 14 views in an hour? Weekends really are slow

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor I just couldn't resist to put that I part before MFree, sorry :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil This one?

Hmm, looks interesting.

Beastly Gerbil

I know but people will forget about it or not see as it was posted on a saturday

Rand al'Thor

Nah, I'm sure people will check to see what new puzzles have been posted over the weekend, or check the Unanswered tab.

Will

@LukasRotter Huh, didn't realize that was a thing. The more you know.

Rand al'Thor

13:14

I often get a whole bunch of upvotes on Monday on all the posts I made over the weekend, which supports the first hypothesis.

Beastly Gerbil

My rule is never post at a weekend

Wait till Monday

Rand al'Thor

But every other weekend is the last chance to make an entry for the topic challenge!

Which is why I had to post my last Mysterious Email puzzle on a weekend.

Beastly Gerbil

I don't participate as much as I should. I'm waiting for a topic in which I excel

I have somehow jumped from top 2% this year to top 0.97% this year in two days :/

Sleafar

14:36

Hello, are there any native english speakers around?

Beastly Gerbil

Yes

I'm english

Sleafar

I'm working on a pretty text heavy puzzle and could use someone for proof reading.

Beastly Gerbil

Happy to help

Sleafar

Great, I'll try to open a new chat for this. And I suppose this will disqualify you from posting a solution, is this ok?

Beastly Gerbil

Yes, I probably wouldn't have solved it anyway :P

Lukas Rotter

14:43

You just have to love it when a 1,5l water bottle drops onto your opened laptop :)

Beastly Gerbil

15:00

Oh dear

Sid

Could be an ominous sign that something bad is about to happen...

Lukas Rotter

Had to switch to my secondary computer now, since the affected one currently has to "recover" (i.e. it completely refuses to start)...

Beastly Gerbil

get it to a computer shop as quick as possible

Puzzling Meta

0

Q: My spoiler tags are occassionally not working. What do I do wrong?

In this answer: http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/42695/29343 my spoiler tags are not working, as the ! character is ignored and displayed, as it was text. How do I get a workaround of this?

bug

Lukas Rotter

Well, the affected laptop has an inbuilt "system" (can't think of any matching word) that lets water flow out again, so the developers thankfully thought of dumbasses using their products :)... But that can take a while. It already worked once on a laptop of a colleague that dropped coffee onto a laptop of the same manufacturer, so I don't know.

Lukas Rotter

15:34

Would any of you be interested in a (very) customizable desktop clock? And no, this is not an advertisement.

Maria Deleva

Personally, no. It would take space.

Beastly Gerbil

I have a phone

Maria Deleva

I am actually looking at an oven for the time. As funny as it sounds.

Lukas Rotter

@MariaDeleva It's fancy, though :P But yeah, that's the major drawback.

Maria Deleva

The funny thing actually is that said oven won't work (literally) if the clock has not been set

Sid

15:37

@MariaDeleva What? Ohh, maybe you are making a cake or something...

Maria Deleva

@LukasRotter I am usually not staring at my desktop

@Sid no, just the room I am in is sort of a room for everything. So I am literally, sitting on the bed, with a laptop and at the same time I have a visual of the oven

M Oehm

I do the same: My kitchen is small enough that the clock on the oven can be seen from the dining/living room. (Depending on where I sit, I must get up, though.)

Maria Deleva

My room is kitchen, living room, dining room and bedroom in one. And even has a crib in it. Haha. :) So basically, I get up from the bed, make 2 steps and reach the fridge. :P

Beastly Gerbil

Thats the ideal life for me, fridge by my bed

Sid

My room is sort of bedroom+Study room. Hence, I am holding a chemistry book by my side and staring at puzzles :-p

Ankoganit

15:44

@Sid Chemistry? Sincere condolences... :P

M Oehm

@Ankoganit: It's flipped open at the periodic table, of course - for all the codes that use chemical symbols.

Sid

Yeah... It has been a week. And I am still not prepared... Maybe, I should just pray to God and hope for the best...

@MOehm You know, I would hope that was true... Unfortunately it is not..

Lukas Rotter

@Sid That always works.

M Oehm

@Sid: Yeah, that was just a weak joke. I remember that chemistry wasn't exactly my forte either.

So, good luck!

Sid

Thanks, I would actually need that..

Ankoganit

15:50

@Ankoganit are u Gamow? — Oray 2 mins ago

Weird things people ask...

Lukas Rotter

Aaand the conspiracies begin again. I'll do some scientific research to prove it :P

Beastly Gerbil

@Ankoganit, hmmm. Do you have something to tell us? :P

Ankoganit

@BeastlyGerbil Gamow is equipotent to my power set...you can't find a bijection between us. :P

In any case, it's nice that people mistake me for a 30k+ user...;)

Lukas Rotter

@Ankoganit ... and a plagiariser and master of (sock)puppets :P

Rand al'Thor

@Ankoganit It won't be so nice if you get suspended for circumventing his ban :-P

Also, yeah, what Lukas said ^^

Beastly Gerbil

16:20

How long was he suspended in the end?

Maria Deleva

@Sid what kind of chemistry? :) I wasn't really bad at chemistry but don't remember much :)

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Two months.

Beastly Gerbil

okay not that much then

Rand al'Thor

That's pretty long really.

Beastly Gerbil

Well you were out for a year :P

Puzzling Meta

16:32

1

Q: Before the Burnination: retagging [word-problem] questions

The consensus at Should we burninate [word-problem]? has been strongly (+13/-0) in favour of burninating the word-problem tag. Great news, I say ... but there's still the problem of what to do with all the questions which currently bear this tag. A Stack Exchange employee can easily burninate the...

discussion tags retagging

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil ... no comment, I suppose.

@PuzzlingMeta Bah, I went to all the effort of writing up that meta post and then found out there are hardly any questions that need editing!

Beastly Gerbil

That must be annoying

Will

My café puzzle has been solved! Did not expect that to take nearly three months...

Beastly Gerbil

It has? Which question?

Oh that one

Definetely deserves a bounty

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

16:48

53

Q: Gain Access to the Café's Internet

There's a cool new cybercafé in town called #DECAFE The café charges a fee to use their computers, but if you BYOC (bring your own computer) you can get on their internet free with any purchase... if you know how! After you pay, the cashier says a sentence. If you reply with the correct number,...

password steganography

Beastly Gerbil

Woo

M Oehm

17:14

@Will: Thanks for the bounty. And good you didn't answer the question yourself in the meantime - I'm a necromancer now.

Beastly Gerbil

And well done on 8k

When you get the bounty that is

Areeb

Anyone else enjoying being able to play video games in iMessages with ios10?

M Oehm

Thanks, @BeastlyGerbil: Is 8k a special mark? I think the next "official" mark is 10k, but I don't make use of my privileges. Maybe I ought to use them more.

Will

@MOehm Nope, you're right that 10k is the next milestone. It's got the funnest new privileges too which you'll definitely use.

Beastly Gerbil

No its just a 1000 milestone

Rand al'Thor

17:23

@MOehm 10k is the big one.

in Mos Eisley, Oct 4 '15 at 21:21, by Praxis

@randal'thor : 10k is when you get instant healing, x-ray vision, and the ability to see 15 seconds into the future. 20k, you get improved stamina, and 25k you get a Starbucks gift card.

4

Will

... that's accurate

Beastly Gerbil

@Will, you'll be 10k soon

Maybe if you hadn't given that bounty :P

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Seriously? 35 upvotes on a question about me? :P

Rand al'Thor

I was just thinking "where the hell is @Mithrandir and has he seen my question about his notebook" :-P

Mithrandir

It was Saturday.

Beastly Gerbil

17:27

That explains all

:P

Rand al'Thor

So, did you check on top of the fridge?

Mithrandir

Yep

Rand al'Thor

Where did you find that note?? — Scimonster 1 min ago

Heh.

M Oehm

Okay, that sounds too good not to use. Does PSE have fetch quests to get there faster?

Mithrandir

It was under the bed.

Will

17:27

Over the mini fridge under the bed?

2

Beastly Gerbil

Imagine if it was on top of the fridge. Creepy

Mithrandir

...Since I have a loft bed, that was a pretty large area to check.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Damn, BENEATH BED would have been the right number of letters too.

Mithrandir

:P

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor, i'm disappointed with your psychic powers :P

Mithrandir

17:30

So now I'm working on the puzzles :P

Now I have to include a link to that puzzle...

Beastly Gerbil

I'm currently working on the roulette part of my casino puzzle having finished the black jack part

I've actually made it so you can play blackjack as part of the puzzle

However I have no idea how to play roulette so I'm currently having a bit of trouble

I'll make sure I don't search russian roulette though :P

Mithrandir

Oh yeah, @Randal'Thor you do realize that you made a puzzle about me. That's more proof for anyone who's trying to prove it...

Lukas Rotter

@BeastlyGerbil Wait... what? How? Code snippets are disabled.

Beastly Gerbil

@LukasRotter, sorry what?

Oh the blackjack game

I'll tell you

Basically you get a card on a gif, and then it says Hit - imgur address and Stand - imgur address and when you type in that imgur address you get a new gif

You get to play 3 times

Hoping I'm building anticipation for this puzzle :P I'm hoping it's a big one for me

Lukas Rotter

@BeastlyGerbil Ah I see, that's very creative!

Deusovi

17:37

Ooh, cool!

Beastly Gerbil

I'm going to try making the roulette a game too. However Bingo and Slots are just Gifs.

Lukas Rotter

I'm planning on making a bigger puzzle since one month or so... I never was really satisfied with any draft I made, lol. Since the puzzle will be about a game I don't want to mess it up, because it's an awesome game IMO.

Sid

@BeastlyGerbil Oh, you are still working on creating that puzzle. I thought you had given up..

Beastly Gerbil

Quick question, should the wheel be European or American? What would work best on this site?

Maria Deleva

what is the difference?

Sid

17:44

Ah.. @MariaDeleva Yeah.. Well, my exam is on physical and organic chemistry...

Beastly Gerbil

@MariaDeleva, one wheel has 37, american has 38

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil As long as you say which one you're using, does it matter?

Beastly Gerbil

As I said above

Maria Deleva

My mother used to work in an institute specialising in organic chemistry. There you need to learn to count to 4. My chemistry teacher, when introducing organic chemistry to us, said she would prove to us that we can't count to 4. We all laughed. She was right. :)

Beastly Gerbil

Okay I'll use European, as it's easier for me

Maria Deleva

17:49

By there I meant organic chemistry, not the institute, obviously. Haha. :)

Sid

That actually went over my head... Counting to 4 in chemistry??

Maria Deleva

Because Carbon, which is the main element in organic chemistry, has 4 covalent bonds.

Beastly Gerbil

@Sid, maybe you should ask @MariaDeleva to do your test for you :P

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor I also found it ironic that it was ~3 hours after I posted that I actually went to bed, musing about where I might have put the notebook...

Maria Deleva

Hahah :) That wouldn't be too difficult. :)

Rand al'Thor

17:53

@Mithrandir Had you already found it by the time I posted my puzzle?

Sid

Yeah... That would do me a world of good... @MariaDeleva Also, that count to 4 is a pretty good idea, maybe I can use that in one of my puzzles which I am going to create...

Mithrandir

Nope

Were you inspired by Clue 12?

Maria Deleva

@Sid, funny thing is, our teacher was right. It really turned out all of us can't count to 4 as we did silly mistakes of that sort.

Mithrandir

I got like 20 profile views since posted that puzzle, though...

Maria Deleva

@Mithrandir are you complaining? You wanted more? :P :D

Rand al'Thor

17:56

@Mithrandir Yep. I even mentioned powers of two (and diamonds) in the message, I think.

Mithrandir

@MariaDeleva Nope. :D I was being grateful.

@Randal'Thor Yes you did.

Maria Deleva

@Mithrandir I know. I am only joking :)

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir data.stackexchange.com/puzzling/query/159861/… :-P

Sid

I still don't get how that puzzle got that many upvotes in so less views... I was thinking it would get around 20 or so but it has already doubled that..

Rand al'Thor

... why did this get >100,000 views?

Maria Deleva

18:00

Because you are advertising it on chat? :D

Deusovi

Probably linked from offsite?

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Yeah, I guess so. Nobody got the Announcer badge for it though.

The @Mithrandir question is still on HNQs, btw :-D

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor I noticed :P

Maria Deleva

@Mithrandir you should pay Rand for PR :)

Mithrandir

he's getting paid in the attention for his puzzle

Maria Deleva

18:05

good point

Rand al'Thor

Sep 10 at 15:52, by Rand al'Thor

(Ahh, it's nice to run into an old puzzle that you'd forgotten you'd written ...)

Maria Deleva

Ah,, I just had an idea that would have made a nice history puzzle. A bit too late.

Rand al'Thor

And again.

Maria Deleva

So I wonder - was the history tag created for the fortnightly challenge or could it still be used for puzzles? Stupid question, I know, but I am still new. :)

Deusovi

Oh, it can still be used!

It might've been created for the fortnightly challenge. I don't remember. But there's no reason you can't use it!

Maria Deleva

18:17

So I can start working on my idea. :)

Rand al'Thor

@MariaDeleva None of these topic-challenge tags are just for the topic challenge. Most or all of them are pre-existing tags which just get extra promotion for one fortnight.

Deusovi

Can't wait to see it! :D

Not all of them are pre-existing. I know video-games was new, and I think several others were as well.

Maria Deleva

Thanks. Both of you. :)

Deusovi

You guys ever heard of a game called Codenames?

Maria Deleva

No, but looks interesting from what I can see at a first glance on the wikipedia page

Deusovi

18:20

It's a lot of fun - I just played my first match last night

Mithrandir

I'm going to post the second pretzel rebus just to get it done... goes to shrink images

Deusovi

There are 25 words in a 5x5 grid. Some of them belong to the red team, some to the blue team, and some to neither team. The goal is to get your team to guess all of the ones of your color first

Rand al'Thor

Huh. I remember getting my inspiration for this puzzle somewhere, but I've no idea where. I think I found it with a different number (but the same method of proof), and substituted 2015 instead because the proof still worked.

Deusovi

Only two people, the spymasters for each team, know the color assignments. They can give one-word clues only, with an additional number that tells the team how many answers relate to that clue.

Rand al'Thor

The only version with those exact numbers I can find on the internet now is on this Russian site, which definitely isn't where I found it.

Should I edit the question to say I was inspired by something I read somewhere but can't remember where, or is it OK as is?

Deusovi

18:23

Hm... I'm not sure. Maybe looking up the proof will help you find it?

I was the spymaster for one game - I said "Cloverfield, 3" and successfully got my team to guess "Film", "Luck", and "Compound" (since it's a compound word).

Maria Deleva

you got a good team :) and good clue :)

Deusovi

As for the question, I think you should probably edit that in.

Maria Deleva

that reminded me actually of a game on yahoo - you were supposed to draw a hint for the word

I sucked at it.

Rand al'Thor

Heh, I found it on Maths SE but that question was posted after mine.

Deusovi

Ooh, there's a version we can play online

Maria Deleva

18:26

And there could be up 4 or 6 players playing - one is drawing, and the others should guees

Rand al'Thor

Anyone with a Maths SE account want to leave a comment linking back to our site?

Deusovi

I've got one, but I rarely use it. Do you not? I'm surprised.

Maria Deleva

You can easily make an account and post a comment.

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi I like to keep my accounts list small just to minimise clutter. Besides, Maths Overflow would be more useful to me at this stage than Maths SE.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor Fair enough! I regularly sign up for sites in the SE network just to make one dumb comment and occasionally upvote.

Rand al'Thor

18:29

(I used to have a shared Maths SE account several years ago, which is how I found SFF originally. Eventually I signed up to SFF and then Puzzling and other sites, but never went back to that Maths SE account.)

@Deusovi That could be fun! But some of us probably need to have a better understanding of the rules before diving in :-)

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor I'd happily explain in more detail! We'd need at least six people to play though.

Maria Deleva

And now I found out yahoo games were shut down. I used to like literati and several other word games there....

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Actually I think the method of proof is common enough to be a chestnut, and the particular case with 2015 I did come up with myself, even if somebody else also used it on that Russian site.

@MariaDeleva Really? :-(

Deusovi

Hm, alright!

Maria Deleva

Yes, unfortunately. I also remember one other game I liked playing - it wasn't on yahoo. There were several players (4 perhaps)), some random words thrown on the board and you had to make sentences of them

Rand al'Thor

18:37

There's another game I used to enjoy, with a 5x5 grid of letters and any number of players. Each player takes turns to call out a letter, and then everyone has to put that letter into their grid in a place of their own choosing. The aim of the game is to form as many words as possible, reading up-to-down and left-to-right; you get n points for each word of n letters.

Maria Deleva

Sounds interesting - is it still online?

Deusovi

Oh, I've heard of that!

We could just play it through this chat.

Rand al'Thor

@MariaDeleva I never played it online, only with pencil and paper :-)

But yeah, what Deusovi said. There's not much information we need to exchange.

Maria Deleva

There was a word-search game on yahoo also - with 2-8 players I think, you were given time to search for valid words on a board (at least 3 letters long) and the words scored different points depending on their letters. There were 4 rounds - the one with the highest score at the end wins.

Rosie F

19:01

@Randal'Thor I've done a few of them over the last few days. I think a priority would be to put good tags on those Qs which have the deprecated tag and no other tag. What's the search-query for those? or isn't there one?

@Deusovi It sounds like a good game. But it requires hidden info (where each player puts each letter is not known to the others until the final showdown) and some way to compel each player to commit each letter to a place before the next letter is called.

Deusovi

@RosieF True, we'd probably have to do it by the honor system if we were to do it over chat.

Areeb

There are a lot of people in chat today

Mithrandir

19:20

@Randal'Thor Can I add the links to the respective puzzles for 'power of two' and 'diamond' in your puzzle?

Rand al'Thor

19:33

@Deusovi Is this edit OK for 'inexact attribution'?

@Mithrandir Sure.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor I don't have an issue with it, but I might have to talk to the other mods about it.

If that's all you can do though, I think it's fine.

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF No, those are exactly the ones we don't need to worry about! Because they'll be easy to find even after the tag is gone, simply by searching for untagged.

Rosie F

@Randal'Thor OIC. I misunderstood. I thought that there were already heaps of untagged Qs. But if not, then I needn't worry any more.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Thanks, done.

Rosie F

19:53

@Randal'Thor Found something similar (not identical) here.

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

20:43

-6

Q: Bartenders' beer-table error-correction code

At a pub, a friend spotted our table number being 412; there were nowhere near 400 tables. We mused if it could include a checksum so the bartender could tell if customers gave an invalid number. I thought it even better if it had error-correction, so any single digit being changed (without reo...

mathematics no-computers algorithm

Rand al'Thor

21:19

I think this question should be closed.

Deusovi

Agreed. Modhammering now might seem a bit too dictator-ish though.

Rand al'Thor

0

Q: 5 guards, 5 doors, and probability

1st Guard: Always lies all the time. (all the guards that lie about certain things, will only lie about which door is safe, and they will not lie about other things) 2nd Guard: Always tells the truth all the time. 3rd Guard: 75% probability of telling the truth. 4th Guard: 50% probability of t...

logical-deduction liars

...

Deusovi

...

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi It just got edited.

I think it might be answerable now?

Deusovi

I don't think so. There's not nearly enough information.

I could be wrong, but...

Rand al'Thor

21:33

I can't think of any 'argument' that it's unsolvable which wouldn't also apply to the classical problem with just two guards.

Deusovi

The fact that you have one bit of information that you need to choose between five doors with?

Rand al'Thor

Whatever question you ask, you'll have no idea whether the answer is true or a lie ... but that applies in the classical case too.

Deusovi

Wait.

We don't even know how many doors there are!

Or if there are any doors!

FrodCube

The title says 5 guards and 5 doors

Deusovi

...Right, the title.

Still though, one bit of information to decide between five doors?

Rand al'Thor

21:35

@Deusovi I refer you to ...

20

Q: Differentiate between the numbers from 1 to 5 with one single yes/no question

This question requires a bit of logical distortion to get the information required to answer the question. However, I've never seen it asked before what would happen if more modes of question unanswerability were introduced. I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 5, and you're allowed to ask one...

logical-deduction lateral-thinking

Deusovi

There could be some clever way (maybe with questions that aren't just yes/no)

...like that

but I somehow doubt that OP had a solution in mind.

FrodCube

Also he is asking "which door has the highest probability of being safe." that is different from "find a way to know which door is safe"

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Which doesn't mean it's not solvable, or that the question is off-topic.

Deusovi

Yeah, but there's not any way to calculate a probability for at least 3 of the doors.

@Randal'Thor True! I never claimed it did make it off topic.

Rand al'Thor

I didn't have a solution in mind when I asked this question (not my best question, but still).

Deusovi

21:37

It just doesn't give me high hopes that it'll be a quality question, that's all.

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi But you closed the question :-)

Deusovi

I closed the old version of the question.

Rand al'Thor

If you'd closed it just 40 seconds earlier, I would have agreed completely (I VTCed first, after all).

Deusovi

My browser hadn't updated it yet. :P

Rand al'Thor

But after it got edited, I was about to retract my close vote when I got the "this question has been put on hold, please reload the page" popup.

Deusovi

21:41

Huh, really? I didn't get that for a while. Maybe it's just a bad connection or something?

Anyway, I've reopened it.

Rand al'Thor

We might be thinking of different things. I mean the little red popup that appears when you try to click on the "close" button but the question has already been closed.

Deusovi

Oh, I just meant any update to the question's status in general. I didn't get the edit until after I closed.

Deusovi

21:52

@randal'thor Well then, try to find the solution. I wonder if you'll be the first or not! — TheBitByte 41 secs ago

That's a very evasive answer to "Do you know the solution to this puzzle?".

Rand al'Thor

@randal'thor I thought that was obvious... Perhaps you're a bit sleepy. :D — TheBitByte 59 secs ago

I give up.

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor I'm going to hang a screenshot of this conversation up on my wall :P Priceless.

Lukas Rotter

22:24

Can someone help me here? I have no idea what @TheBitByte means by "assuming"... I can't see any comment of @Randal'Thor that would suggests he assumes something.

Rand al'Thor

22:56

OK, this is so cool I just had to post it here.

Rand al'Thor

23:08

... and the other two of the last three questions posted need to be closed :-/

Deusovi

Yyyep.

Deusovi

23:43

@Randal'Thor: Damn, you beat me to it.

Puzzling Meta

-1

Q: Can the maths problem close vote be objective?

It's come up before on meta, a lot, it seems. However, I don't know whether there's a set of specific rules that define what is a maths problem and what isn't one. For example: Question x is a objectively a maths problem, if: a b c etc.

discussion

Rand al'Thor

10 minutes to get another 20 rep for the cap. Not gonna make it.

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