The Sphinx's Lair

stacksfiller

12:01 AM

What happens if no one gets the CCCC

Do you just start a new chain?

Deusovi

Then the setter posts hints until someone does.

Rand al'Thor

1:42 AM

Congrats @Gareth on 25k rep!

Gareth McCaughan

@Rand thanks! (I knew it would be you who would comment on it...)

Rand al'Thor

... meaning I'm nice about congratulating people, or that I'm obsessed with rep (anyone's rep)?

Gareth McCaughan

Both, obviously :-)

user61230

@Randal'Thor Why not both? ;)

Gareth McCaughan

But now I shall sit and weep, having no more worlds to conquer.

Rand al'Thor

1:53 AM

@GarethMcCaughan You can always give away lots of rep in bounties and then challenge yourself to get back to 25k.

boboquack

Conquer the #1 spot on the leaderboards, obviously

Rand al'Thor

I seesawed around 3k for a while over on Movies & TV by setting bounties.

Volatility

@GarethMcCaughan ...apart from the world of puzzle-making :P

boboquack

Get a gold tag badge!

Rand al'Thor

Fun fact: by seesawing around 3k, you get to mark your own flags helpful. Just flag a question for closure while below 3k, then break the threshold and VTC it properly.

(And no, that isn't how I got my Marshal badge on M&TV.)

Gareth McCaughan

1:55 AM

All excellent suggestions, I suppose.

boboquack

Ooh! I'm 2992 rep. Maybe I should go and flag heaps of bad posts!

Can you still flag posts over 3k?

Rand al'Thor

@boboquack Who'd want a gold tag badge on Puzzling?

;-)

user61230

Not for closure.

boboquack

Then for what? Duplicates?

Rand al'Thor

@boboquack Dupe-closing is still closing.

If you're >3k and you try to flag a question for closure, your flag is auto-converted to a VTC and doesn't count on your flag history.

user61230

1:58 AM

That's why Rand said "seesawing" - you've gotta dip below 3K, drop a bunch of flags, then go above 3K and VTC, validating your own flags.

boboquack

Can you still flag for mod attention?

Rand al'Thor

@boboquack Of course.

Anyone can appeal to the mods, not just low-rep users.

Even mods can flag for mod attention.

boboquack

?!

Rand al'Thor

I think I've done that ... once since becoming a mod.

Gareth McCaughan

for the attention of the other mods

boboquack

2:02 AM

And what can mods do that mods can't do?

Rand al'Thor

It's useful when you find something that needs handling but don't want to handle it yourself because of some conflict of interest.

boboquack

BTW rand, you're a mathematician, right?

Is there a symbol for not necessarily equal to?

E.g. x (not necessarily equal to) x^2 because 1=1^2 but 2 not = 2^2

Would it be not conguent to?

Rand al'Thor

@boboquack Not that I can think of.

"x = x^2 has solutions but isn't universally true"

Gareth McCaughan

it's not really the sort of thing you need to say often enough to need a specific symbol

boboquack

Thanks anyway!

Could you do (x=x^2) is false?

Rubio

2:05 AM

good lord. the new version of the Clue Twenty-Seven puzzle, compared to its predecessor, is almost comically overhauled to the point of only tangentially looking like the same puzzle

Gareth McCaughan

if you just mean "not always equal" as opposed to "sometimes but not always equal" then a crossed-out three-line thingy would do, except that that symbol is also to mean congruent triangles and congruent modulo some number and so forth

Volatility

I think I just didn't spend enough time thinking it through at the beginning. Poor execution of a nice (at least to me) idea.

Gareth McCaughan

Well, I understand some of what's happening in the puzzle now but am (I'm pretty sure) still missing at least one important step.

Volatility

2:21 AM

@GarethMcCaughan the first hint might help at this point

Gareth McCaughan

yes, I thought it might and am gently pondering it.

boboquack

Or take it with a pinch of '

Gareth McCaughan

(and also, though it feels just a little cheaty, pondering the fact that the original form was also supposed to be enough to solve the puzzle somehow)

@boboquack I think hint 2 makes that less likely

Volatility

@GarethMcCaughan Well, I thought it was. In hindsight the very first version was unfair, but the second version I thought had an "in" which would help people solve it, but apparently not.

Gareth McCaughan

hmm, I may have noticed something

(or I may not)

Rubio

2:34 AM

wow.

Gareth McCaughan

@Volatility Is my latest crackpot theory too cracked?

Volatility

Argh, major stuff up

Rubio

I think stacksfiller just nailed it

Volatility

Yeah, almost

Gareth McCaughan

why are lords moors?

Volatility

2:35 AM

they're not

Gareth McCaughan

and, er, was stacksfiller solving it at the same time as I was or did he just copy most of what I did and make a couple of changes?

stacksfiller

I used your phrases, but noticed the letter changes independently.

Gareth McCaughan

fair enough

Rubio

yeah the timing strongly suggests fully independent work there

Volatility

(sorry about the TAO/TAU thing; I did this in a hurry and forgot how to spell)

Gareth McCaughan

2:36 AM

and yeah, TAO for TAU is a major stuff-up (I assume that's what V meant)

stacksfiller

Oh, it should be WOLDS I guess?

Gareth McCaughan

but maybe I'm just saying that because I didn't notice it :-)

stacksfiller

I hadn't heard of that

Gareth McCaughan

WOLDS sounds much better

Rubio

probably wolds, yeah

Volatility

2:37 AM

I don't think there was any other thing where a letter could be swapped for A though

Gareth McCaughan

I had heard of it but didn't think of it so well done

Volatility

yeah, wolds

stacksfiller

I used LORDS (and took the right letter from TAU) only because I already knew the answer.

Volatility

Also, it's not just an anagram to get SALT, there's an ordering mechanism

Rubio

i'm going to go out on a limb and say there's pretty much zero chance anyone would have ever solved this in its previous presentation. the notion of A [!]= B just isn't visible the other way.

stacksfiller

2:39 AM

I see it

It's the location of the changed letter, I didn't see it when I had LORDS

Rubio

howdy @Hakdo

Volatility

@Rubio Yeah, I realise that now. I thought "Ten hundred moors" -> "thousand wolds" would be enough to look for the proverb link, but apparently not.

Gareth McCaughan

The word "wold" is pretty obscure. (I know it because there's a place called Stow-on-the-Wold not far from somewhere I lived once; I don't think I've ever heard it actually used.)

stacksfiller

And moors has a lot of words it can be

wordplays.com/crossword-solver/moors

Rubio

my primary dictionary doesn't include "wold" at all in the def for moors

Gareth McCaughan

2:41 AM

a more relevant question would be whether it includes "moor" in the def for "wold"

Rubio

Moors being (probably) more associated with the people than the land

and no. it doesn't link the words in either direction

stacksfiller

I had thought yesterday "Noise of acuity" = O ("oh!"), "Ten hundred" = M, "Two pies" = T (tau) and got a little lost looking for connections.

Volatility

Neither; it was LORDS in the first version, but Google said WOLDS was a word, so decided to change it to that (since it allowed for the ordering mechanism)

Rubio

but of course from a solving perspective, you want a path from clue to answer.

Gareth McCaughan

I think a moor has to be flat and low-lying whereas a wold is generally either forested or a hilly upland

Volatility

2:43 AM

Well, I was just going by what Google said

Rubio

Google. Bah. what do they know.

Gareth McCaughan

actually, no, that's not quite fair; according to the OED a wold can be "A piece of open country; a plain".

Rubio

Next time pick a source people respect. Not some two-bit fly by night shop ;)

Gareth McCaughan

oh, and also "in later use chiefly, an elevated tract of open country or moorland" which even has the word "moor" in it :-)

and yeah, "moor" doesn't actually have to be low-lying, though the oldest meanings do

so basically I was 100% wrong; sorry

TheGreatEscaper

@Mithrandir no, sorry

Rubio

2:45 AM

that was a bit of a butt-kick of a puzzle. Cool concept, but I think you're right about grossly underestimating its difficulty in the original presentation.

Volatility

Yeah, sorry about that :/

Rubio

I wonder if simply adding "I am ..." just before the inner block would have done it

Volatility

Can I change "2*pi" to "philosophy" or something to actually clue TAO this time?

Rubio

reference the Tao of Pooh. :)

Sphinx

0

Q: Algebra Sudoku: Dozens

Alas, the grid deduction fortnightly is over, but my love for the genre remains the same - i.e. very high. So, here is another grid deduction puzzle. An algebra sudoku! I think the rules are fairly obvious. Just note that the numbers in each box should be read normally, going left to right or go...

Volatility

2:48 AM

heh :)

Rubio

@TheGreatEscaper Put the grids down and step away from the table

You're dangerous :)

This looks cool

TheGreatEscaper

Haha you'll never take me away from my precious grids!

Sp3000

@TheGreatEscaper You used "one" to clue MONO in MONOTONOUS :( (etymology double-up)

Rubio

So this isn't just going to be 1..9 sudoku with algebraic constraints?

man. I wish I had time to work through this right now

TheGreatEscaper

It's a normal sudoku

but it just has the algebraic things too

Rubio

2:54 AM

it is??

TheGreatEscaper

@Sp3000 :( I'm sorry I'm still a bit of a cryptic newbie, so I often get informed I break the rules a few times in every set of cryptics I release

Rubio

how can one cell be "d" and another cell be "12d" ? I think I'm missing something

TheGreatEscaper

The red box covers multiple digits

Is it a bit hard to see the red boxes?

Rubio

ohhhhh. yeah that wasn't clear to me

I didn't notice they extend beyond one cell. Ignore me

TheGreatEscaper

I coloured in the insides of the red cells

hopefully that reduces any confusion

Rubio

3:01 AM

weird. that helps, and I wouldn't have thought it would :)

i gotta run though :( that looks like fun. enjoy, whoever solves it

Sp3000

@TheGreatEscaper No worries, I'm still learning too :P But for that one the rule of thumb is to not use the same meaning as part of the answer in the clue, since it's less interesting when solving (e.g. cluing HOMEWORK as a word for "house job" isn't great)

TheGreatEscaper

Ohhhhh, I gotcha

So for example if you were cluing REPLAY
You wouldn't want to use 'again' to clue RE

Sp3000

... yeah that's a good example :)

TheGreatEscaper

Cya Rubio!

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor We typically use it to remind ourselves to return later after we ask an answerer for more explanation.

@TheGreatEscaper Yep!

Rand al'Thor

3:04 AM

@Deusovi That must put your average flag handling time at some horribly high number.

Deusovi

Not really.

Rand al'Thor

Eek. I wasn't trying to prod you to post that info publicly :-P

Deusovi

I know! I don't really see any harm in posting it, though.

If the average flag handling time is supposed to be kept secret, then... whoops.

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, it's probably fine. I just tend to be careful about posting anything relating to mod tools in public.

Deusovi

Yeah, I wouldn't screenshot the whole page or anything.

boboquack

3:11 AM

@The, did you get the email I sent you?

TheGreatEscaper

Yup! I'm still thinking of a way to make it into something that won't be terribly underclued, though

Silenus

Generally, crossword clues are supposed to agree grammatically with the answer they are cluing (that is, they are supposed to have the same tense, number, etc.) But sometimes it seems fine to break this rule. For example, it seems fine to clue "mind" with "marbles". Although they differ in pluralization, they are substitutable in: "I'm losing my mind/marbles".

Similarly, it seems fine to clue "risk" with "stakes", despite the difference in pluralization. What do you guys think about these two examples? Kosher or no?

It seems no worse that cluing "we" with "our" (they have different case and are regularly used by top-notch setters) or "I" with "Silenus."

Deusovi

I'd never clue "we" with "our".

The others are fine though - they're synonyms.

"Marbles" refers to a single mind.

Same with "risk" and "stakes" - they both refer to the same object.

Silenus

@Deusovi But you've certainly encountered it, no? And technically the "marbles"/"mind" example breaks the rule of grammatical agreement. I guess reference trumps that rule.

Deusovi

I don't recall encountering it, no.

The issue with grammatical agreement is not the grammar itself, it's what it's referring to.

The "grammatical agreement" rule is nice as a general guideline, but there are exceptions to it, as you've pointed out.

Silenus

3:26 AM

@Deusovi I can't seem to find any example of cluing "we" with "our," now that I'm looking. I guess I was thinking of examples which involve cluing "I" and "you" with "the setter" and "solver", respectively. These differ in grammatical person but are conventionally accepted, corroborating the fact that reference is (primarily) what matters.

Deusovi

How do they differ in grammatical person, exactly?

Silenus

@Deusovi One is in first person ("I"), one is in third person ("the setter"). Person is a grammatical distinction.

Sp3000

Mind/marbles seems like a rare exception because "marbles" doesn't really mean "mind" outside of that particular phrase, so I guess it's somewhat acceptable due to substitutability in that phrase as you've pointed out

Deusovi

I'm aware of what grammatical person is. In English, nouns do not have a grammatical person though - only pronouns do.

Silenus

@Sp3000 Yes, maybe the "marbles"/"mind" example requires a hedge/indicator like "perhaps" or "?"

@Deusovi Sentences like "The man walked to the store" are often said to be in third person. At least this is a distinction children are taught, regardless of whether professional syntacticians abide by the distinction.

Deusovi

3:29 AM

Yes, but that's not the same thing as grammatical person. It's semantic, not syntactic.

Silenus

@Deusovi Fair enough.

TheGreatEscaper

I feel like substitution is a bit iffy

I dunno but personally I wouldn't like marbles to clue mind

Deusovi

Yeah, "marbles" would probably need a "?"

TheGreatEscaper

It's just like saying 'The house burned down' 'The house burned up' down can clue up, yay

boboquack

'A boy walked to the store.' could be said to be in 3rd person. But 'Were you the boy who walked to the store?' or equivalently 'A boy walked to the store. Was it you?' could be said to be in 2nd person.

Silenus

3:32 AM

@boboquack I guess so. I didn't want to dredge up linguistic theory concerning the boundary between syntax and semantics. Just to ask what you all think about the flexibility in cluing.

TheGreatEscaper

Why does Will's CCCC have so many brackets

I'm calling it now: COD stands for 'Cryptic Of Death'

Deusovi

I think it's a joke about the programming language Scheme, known for having a lot of parentheses

(Lisp is known for this too - IIRC the languages are related)

Sp3000

Yeah, all the Lisp-like languages, basically :P

TheGreatEscaper

It's Will, surely the brackets are important to the clue too :P

boboquack

(((((((((((((((((((Just to let you know, most programming languages have matched brackets)

Silenus

3:34 AM

@Deusovi Will said that is was a joke, but did he also indicate that the parentheses are irrelevant to the solution?

Deusovi

That's after the enumeration though...

No, he didn't.

I'm a bit suspicious too.

Silenus

Hmm...

Sp3000

Personally I'm still disappointed it wasn't RACKET :P (as the only 6-letter Scheme-related lang I know of)

Deusovi

That would have sorta worked with the parentheses too. ("Unopened bracket")

stacksfiller

Clever!

Deusovi

3:36 AM

...Aw, I should've saved that for my own cryptic clue.

stacksfiller

There are some clues I've seen where the wordplay goes in reverse like "B" for "ABALONE" and the like

Do you think it's something like that? I don't really see it how it could be a regular clue

Deusovi

Yeah, I've seen those too. They're cute, but sometimes a bit unfair without crossing letters or a unique enumeration.

I mean, I wrote the clue "000-ish (5)" a few days ago :P

stacksfiller

???

Sp3000

000-ish isn't quite the same thing though :P

Deusovi

It's a perfectly valid cryptic clue.

Sp3000

3:39 AM

(as in it's not an inverse clue)

Deusovi

^

stacksfiller

What is it? I've seen that "OOO" can be "DISCO BALL", but that doesn't fit this definition or word length

TheGreatEscaper

The 000-ish was awesome

Deusovi

Heh, cute.

The answer is OVOID

Sp3000

Main thought for COD is probably still cause of death, since Will said acronym at some point

stacksfiller

3:40 AM

Oh man

That's sweet

Deusovi

:D

I've written a couple clues that I'm particularly proud of

Another fun one:

7 - (6 - 9) = 10, maybe (4)

Sp3000

Still think the split by numbers needed a ? personally :P but oh well, don't really mind either way

boboquack

True?

stacksfiller

I think I get the beginning part

Deusovi

Yeah, that's the only questionable part, Sp.

stacksfiller

3:41 AM

Oh, is it EVEN?

Deusovi

Yep!

TheGreatEscaper

Whaa?

Silenus

@stacksfiller Care to explain?

stacksfiller

SEVEN - (SIX-IX)

TheGreatEscaper

Oh, also, hiya @Stacksfiller! Your first puzzle was awesome

Sp3000

3:42 AM

Reminds me of the time there was a clue where you had to anagram 104 to get CORFU (C + FOUR) ... that was weird

stacksfiller

Hi!

Silenus

@stacksfiller Ahh, elegant indeed!

Deusovi

@Sp3000 Oh god, that sounds terrible.

stacksfiller

My mathy friend made the clue "Put on the end, put on the end! (2, 3, 4)"

I reallllly like it

Deusovi

Hm...

Sp3000

3:43 AM

Yeah, really a clue you needed cross letters for, although the def helped if you actually knew the place (this was in a newspaper in case you're wondering)

stacksfiller

I have a stretch-y guess for the CCCC

METHOD?

Deusovi

Go ahead!

boboquack

Ping Will!

Sp3000

Meth overdose seems like something Will would do

stacksfiller

@Will METHOD

Sp3000

3:45 AM

Silly )s meant nothing then :P

Silenus

@stacksfiller seems right!

Deusovi

Possible C --> METH?

Silenus

possible cause of death

Sp3000

Cause of death = meth overdose

Deusovi

Ohhh.

boboquack

3:45 AM

It's a cause of death

Silenus

meth OD

Deusovi

Duh.

Yeah, that's definitely right

TheGreatEscaper

Aw. The brackets didn't mean anything.

stacksfiller

They did

Silenus

@stacksfiller, nice job. That was your first CCCC?

TheGreatEscaper

3:46 AM

But cool answer anyway

stacksfiller

I think?

TheGreatEscaper

Wait, what do the brackets mean?

stacksfiller

Yes it was my first

Sp3000

Brackets didn't mean anything :(

Silenus

@TheGreatEscaper nada

stacksfiller

3:46 AM

The brackets imply it's in the middle of a method in Scheme I thought

Deusovi

Yeah, just a programming joke.

TheGreatEscaper

I just saw scheme as a def for method. I suppose that extra layer is pretty awesome though @stacksfiller

stacksfiller

It works well because METHOD means SCHEME literally, but also is a programming term is what I'm trying to say

Deusovi

Oh! That makes sense, I guess

boboquack

Non-programmer: 'Please pass the salt!'
Programmer: 'Syntax error.'

Deusovi

3:52 AM

Anyway @stacksfiller, your turn to come up with a clue!

stacksfiller

Can I use the clue from my friend from earlier if no one got it yet, or should I make one now?

Deusovi

Sure, that one's fine.

boboquack

(Unless your friend would rather not.)

stacksfiller

CCCC: Put on the end, put on the end! (2, 3, 4)

Sp3000

WEAR + [th]E + DON + [th]E = WE ARE DONE?

Deusovi

4:03 AM

Ooh, yeah. That's gotta be it

stacksfiller

Yeah, that's it

Deusovi

That's really clever!

stacksfiller

WE ARE DONE being what you put on the end, like on a proof

Ankoganit

wow, cool

Will

Okay, now that that one was solved... I've got a question: how horrible would double definition by example be? One of my ideas for that clue was "Possible COD: result of OCD? (6)" because I was amused at the prospect of using two different acronyms with the same letters like that, but I deemed it too mean to use.

TheGreatEscaper

4:06 AM

woah

Silenus

@Will Cluing "method" with "result of OCD?" seems like a bit of a stretch in my opinion, even with the help of the other side...

Deusovi

Yeah, I agree with Silenus

Ankoganit

@Deusovi Going to unstar Will's CCCC?

Unpin, that is

Sp3000

OCD stretches it a bit over the line, yeah

Will

"Method" can be defined as orderliness; I don't see that as a stretch...

Ankoganit

4:10 AM

@Deusovi Is anti-&lit a thing? Just trying to parse this clue.

Deusovi

That would probably still be an &lit. (Not a good one in my opinion, but &lits are sometimes held to lower standards because of how hard they are to construct.)

Ankoganit

Hmm, but what does 'not this one' do in the wordplay?

TheGreatEscaper

Where did the P come from

stacksfiller

Quiet

Ankoganit

Performer

TheGreatEscaper

4:13 AM

Ohhhhhh yup

It's p for quiey

*quiet

Volatility

Is the "about" doing double-duty as an anagram and container indicator?

TheGreatEscaper

I think so

Deusovi

D:

Sp3000

CCCC: Cool diva's poem about minutes one lost frolicking (7, 4)

TheGreatEscaper

Performer is a def, then wordplay to get TAP DANCER. I think the 'not this one' was just added to make it an &lit?

Ankoganit

4:14 AM

okay

I mis-parsed it right from the beginning

But it still doesn't make much sense

oh well

stacksfiller

Seems like "performer who" and "not this one" are only for the definition. It's not quite &lit but the large overlap is what made them put the "!"

Deusovi

I don't like that clue. :/

Ankoganit

same

TheGreatEscaper

I would say I don't like it either, but I've probably made worse...

Deusovi

Have you written any cryptic clues? I don't remember seeing any

TheGreatEscaper

4:17 AM

None in the CCCC. I've made a few sets of cryptics with metas on the main site before.

Deusovi

Oh right! Those clues weren't bad at all.

Sp3000

"Not this one!" aside, the "about" double duty is probably the part that's annoying me the most :(

Deusovi

Agreed.

TheGreatEscaper

There's only one set which received zero complaints in terms of breaking cryptic rules, and it's probably got my favourite meta, but it didn't really get any attention (shameless plug: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/47980/…)

About double duty is annoying

Deusovi

I saw that one! It was nice.

Silenus

4:23 AM

Can someone explain to me how the algebra sudoku works?

Deusovi

Just like a normal Sudoku, with the additional constraint that you must be able to assign numbers to variables so that the numbers in the boxes are equal to the expressions in the top left corner of their corresponding box.

(The numbers assigned to the variables don't have to be 1-9, of course.)

Silenus

@Deusovi Ah, thanks.

Sphinx

0

Q: Nested Analogies

Your puzzle is solving a nested analogy, where the goal is to find the word that fills in the final blank, based on the answer to the analogy in parentheses. An example: sky:blue::(bird:worm::cow:____):____ In this case, the answer to the part in parentheses is "grass", which makes the wh...

language

boboquack

5:09 AM

Are you going to post a wrap-up post for @The whole WITLESS puzzle?

TheGreatEscaper

Possibly, bobo, possibly. Spent a week making that bugger, not in the mood to revisit it too soon :P

boboquack

Would you prefer if I ping you at the start/end of my comment or is it alright for it to be in the middle?

TheGreatEscaper

...does it matter?

boboquack

Depends if I'm writing a message that's only partially relevant to you.

You'd have to search for the ping

And @humn, hope you enjoy the fusion (not unconventional) of two new tags!

Sphinx

5:28 AM

0

Q: Be careful with your words!

You use words all the time, don't you? Better be careful; words are a lot more powerful than you might think. Used mindlessly, they might dishearten someone. They might make you sound off-center. $$\boxed{\begin{array}{c}\text{Decapitate a ut of a necklace}\\ \text{Gained conption fast }\\ \t...

wordplay enigmatic-puzzle

0

Q: A big logical mess

I found a drawing under a stack of books in my house. It looked like a logical circuit diagram, so I decided to make it. I assumed that I was allowed to put anything in the boxes with the question marks. And guess what? The drawing was correct, no matter what I put in the question mark boxes. ...

rebus physics proof-without-words circuitry

humn

@boboquack certainly do! All four tags as it happens. (I did begin to back-tag some circuitry puzzles, as you may have noticed.)

boboquack

Yeah

humn

(Excellent surprise to wake up to, so I'm heading off again. Incidentally, in the legend on the right of the picture, the circuit crossing and XNOR(?) gates look a little like upside-down Greek letters, psi and pi)

boboquack

Are you celebrating Chinese new year?

Your rep is 8880

humn

Surprised I got any sleep at all with all the fireworks

boboquack

5:39 AM

(Though if I upvoted one of your answers and downvoted a different post of yours I didn't vote on it'd be better-8888)

I'm really bamboozled by Solvilocks

humn

You can get a jump on the gift of 8888 that by downvoting first

boboquack

No, I've already upvoted it.

humn

I might have some other puzzle that doesn't have a downvote yet

Guess I disguised Solvilocks pretty well. In its original form it looked too easy. And the original form is still on display, just confounded by surroundings.

boboquack

humn

! (.... wait a sec... some of that smudged off on my finger... i detect wet ink)

boboquack

5:45 AM

?

humn

the downvote didn't officially register on my screen, so i thought you photoshopped the picture

or did you retract the vote?

The number of puzzles (questions) is nearing 8888 also

boboquack

@humn Yeah

I couldn't leave you with a random downvote

@humn How do you know?

humn

@boboquack , well we have 165 puzzles/questions to go:

boboquack

Ooh, we've got 13 days of CNY left. Do you think we'll make it?

humn

Gotta say, some of us have been keeping up the pace. I'm pretty much out of puzzle ideas for the moment though.

You and TheGrE had better step up double. Then again, we could get 163 riddles on any one day.

(... moving on for now, glad I checked for new goodies on the way up though, we'll see if yours is solved before i get full steam up ... )

boboquack

6:01 AM

Is this a valid semi-blah-blah-blah config?

..|||.|...
..|.|.|...
..|||.|...

With the break between the 5s at each end and in the centre

humn

^ is that a puzzle, or you mean like a .confg file? (...came back to see why the system says i'm still here...)

boboquack

Your semiminibinononohohohohologram puzzle

humn

(all right! copying to monospace to check)

..|||.|...
..|.|.|...
..|||.|...

boboquack

How do you do that?

And how many lone 0's are allowed?

humn

4 spaces before each line ... and sometimes [fixed spacing] show up as a button to the right of the type-in area here

Sp3000

6:09 AM

Alternatively, Ctrl+K

Volatility

ctrl-K after highlighting the text works too

ha, ninjad

boboquack

Ninja'd, @Vol

Then me too! :D

Volatility

:P

humn

@boboquack , if you have true lone 0 it should signify an empty row or column

but a 1 can be 01 with an adjacent 0

boboquack

hmmm

humn

6:11 AM

1 can also be 001 but the first 0 is bound to become a column count of its own, in which case it should be the only count for that column

Volatility

actually, it looks like you don't need to highlight to ctrl-K, didn't know that

Sp3000

On a side note (since I feel like I may have been a little mean), if anyone's trying the CCCC without Googling and haven't gotten it yet - feel free to look things up/discuss thoughts. Wouldn't want to hold up the chain all day :P

boboquack

You're nice! Will and Gareth have no such qualms

Deusovi

Will held it up for four days once. :P

Sp3000

It's more that for this one if you haven't heard of the answer before it's a lot trickier, so I don't want people to be stuck from that

(and yes, that's a hint :P)

boboquack

6:18 AM

Yay! I can VTC and VTRO now!

Deusovi

Quick, everyone downvote boboquack!

(That was a joke, don't do that.)

humn

It would only be fair, Deusov' (contraction of Deusovi, which is too long to type by 1 char), boboquack just downvoted me for effect. Can always retract the vote if the system doesn't freeze again.

boboquack

*(Flags as spam/offensive)*
*(Deusovi marks flag as declined)*

humn

Now you won't have time to make more puzzles, bobquack! What with all the voting-to-...

... not sure I answered your semiminibinononohohohohologram question, @boboquack, was it about 01 after all?

boboquack

Yes

humn

6:25 AM

good (now to trod off again, if it works...)

boboquack

Bye!