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1:09 AM
0
Q: How did he count my money so fast?

CreatedByBrettWhen I was in college, each semester there were companies that would buy back your used textbooks. One semester I brought my books to the book-buyer, who said "We'll pay you $41". He grabbed a thick stack of one-dollar bills and, with the thumb of his other hand, "buzzed" off a stack of them in l...

 
 
2 hours later…
3:31 AM
The only (8, 2, 5, 6) phrases OneLook finds are:
activity of daily living, bringing to their senses, category of borel spaces, clarence la verne butler, deprived of legal rights, describe in vivid detail, republic of south africa, strength of enemy forces, treading in black waters, and unlikely to cause injury
(Well, there are more, but they're all abbreviated or NSFW.)
 
3:58 AM
None of those seem particularly promising.
 
4:22 AM
0
Q: What is a Eco-Friendly Word™?

suomynonAThis is in the spirit of the What is a Word™/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it an Eco-Friendly Word™. Use the examples below to find the rule. $$\begin{array}{|c|c|}\hline \bbox[yellow]{\textbf{Ec...

 
4:37 AM
@Deusovi None of those phrases are correct, but it is a phrase you've probably heard before.
 
 
2 hours later…
6:26 AM
So, I have just discovered that PSE is not blocked on school wifi...
 
7:13 AM
Why would it be?
 
usually only websites that the school have approved are allowed (at least at my school). But apparently someone requested that stack overflow was allowed to help with computing, so my school just allowed stack exchange
 
Didn't realise so many users here went to school... what if you need to access something obscure for a certain class?
 
 
1 hour later…
Sid
8:25 AM
@boboquack something obscure, as in?
 
Dunno, maybe a weird history assignment about the use of drainage systems in the Dark Ages?!
 
Sid
Aren't assignments done at home, rather than at school?
 
In-class assignments?
@Rubio Surprised it took so long! Maybe you need to make a more clickbait name...
 
Sid
Well, they shouldn't be giving obscure stuff for In-class assignments but that's more of a personal choice.
 
8:41 AM
So many word property questions :/
 
Sid
Wow, GPR's CCCC is too long.
 
The enumeration, you mean?
 
Sid
@Sp3000 Yeah. They have more or less become "guess what I am thinking" stuff
 
Fun the first few times, but I don't like it when people hop onto the easily reproduceable challenge bandwagon :/
 
I have some fun puzzle ideas but school is just being soooooo annoying.
 
8:45 AM
And you've got the whole year left :P
 
To be fair, my weekends will basically be entirely free.
I'm doing my work on a 'been given' basis, which means I've completed a few things that are due in a week or two's time
 
0
Q: The story of glory

oleslaw No sword, no arrow, no club in my hand, But strength of sheer muscle foretold the beast's end. Nine heads and more, the slithering beast had, I called upon rocks to bury it dead. The goddess felt so lonely I had to spend a year, To capture gold and bronze on top of wounded deer. A ...

 
Sid
@TheGreatEscaper I keep forgetting you are from Southern Hemisphere. And There, I was wondering which school begins in February when School years are supposed to end. :P
 
Don't close your eyes to half the world!...
(in volume)
@Sp3000 If Eco-friendly words is really just words that have an E, this is getting stupid.
 
Yeah... when I first dropped by Puzzling was full of series/copycat puzzles, would be a shame to see that resurface
The problem with this type in particular is that it's very easy to misjudge difficulty as the one writing it, and I'm sure most posters haven't put in enough thought into cluing/confirmation
 
9:09 AM
With the rich uncle question
(The only recent question that I find enticing)
It's been noted that the first parts of the words in the last puzzle almost spell out numbers, right?
Oh wait, it's not even almost. They are numbers.
Oh wait, it's not even almost. They are numbers.
 
9:41 AM
0
Q: What is this number code and how to improve it?

Minh Tri TranBack in high school, I thought of a code to secretly communicate with a few of my close friends. The key to this code is excessively and readily available by using google in 1 second if you know what to search for. "What-is-this?" can be encoded as 74185-5316-905316? "teacher" is 5289168 "poses...

 
 
2 hours later…
11:12 AM
Would "Snake, over 3000 kilograms (6)" be a valid CC?
 
@MariaDeleva I'm drawing a blank on what the intended solution is, so not really sure.
 
Well, it is definition, wordplay. But not sure if the wordplay is OK. But I guess it lacks the method, but I am unsure how to fix it.
It is not for a puzzle, just for fun.
Perhaps "Snake sounds like over 3000 kilograms. (6)"?
 
11:34 AM
I guess I'm just not getting what 'over 3000 kilograms' is supposed to give me.
 
hello fellow puzzlers...
 
goodUGTmorning @ABcDexter
 
How are you, @Rubio ?
 
Doing well, thanks
 
11:51 AM
@MariaDeleva Is the answer actually a snake or more like a snail?
 
12:28 PM
@Sp3000 A snake.
 
12:50 PM
Guess it's not triton then, hmmm (was hoping it wasn't anyway, because that wouldn't really make sense)
 
1:05 PM
Well, you are on the right path. It is python. But I guess "over" in the wp isn't good enough
 
1
Q: Meeting Room - a harder variation of the classic Zebra Puzzle

JamieYou can play it online here: https://www.brainzilla.com/logic/zebra/meeting-room/ Five bosses, each one from an specific department, are in the meeting room. How much each boss earn per month? Where do they go on vacations? ties: black, blue, green, red, yellow names: Adam, Julian, Nathan, Mic...

 
@MariaDeleva I considered python briefly, but "thon" doesn't quite sound like "ton" so I dismissed it
 
1:23 PM
-1
Q: Chess board state one change

Dev Anand SadasivamAs per chess standards, a1 position is for white side and the square is black square what if a1 is at black side Else, what if a1 is white instead Puzzle Question The permutation collision gives of combination near to end game combination, but never be by. Or is it could. As wha...

 
1:34 PM
If you're in here @Randal'Thor I can toss you an image of the completed puzzle
 
@dcfyj Which puzzle?
 
You put up an image of it in the mean time (the zebra puzzle)
 
Yep.
That was fun!
 
I would've posted the solution, but you were well on your way, so I didn't :P
 
@Sphinx Huh?
@dcfyj Ivo did, but with no reasoning.
... oh.
> deleting this answer as rand al'thor's is obviously better – Ivo Beckers 46 secs ago
Good to get back into puzzling a bit. I've been way too busy with Literature for the last couple of weeks ;-)
 
1:44 PM
I'll get back into puzzling on the weekend
for now, schoolwork
sighs
 
2:14 PM
@Randal'Thor You like cryptics, right?
 
@dcfyj Not particularly; I've only got into them recently. Others like @Deusovi are way better and more experienced.
 
Deusovi helped me make one I'd written better, So I figured I'd ask :P
 
(I didn't actually realise that was tagged when I VTCed. It probably shouldn't be.)
 
Didn't know those tags granted that power, wow
 
First-ever use of my gold tag badge powers :-D
 
2:18 PM
lol, It's a duplicate of a duplicate
 
Yeah, I chose the dupe target which it was most obviously a dupe of.
 
posted on February 02, 2017 by Max H.

This question already has an answer here: Brooklyn 99 riddle: Weighing Islanders [duplicate] 3 answers So, I've seen many answers to this riddle and there's a really easy solution that no one seems to have found yet so I wanted to put it up. Here's the riddle: "The

 
Wow! Does a silver tag badge confer any special powers?
 
I didn't think badges do anything for you
only rep unlocks more powers
 
@GarethMcCaughan Nope.
@Matt Only gold tag badges do.
 
2:22 PM
oh :o
 
what do you get for your first gold badge?
 
@Matt ...A gold badge.
 
-.-'
 
@Matt Nothing special unless it's a gold tag badge.
 
2:23 PM
I see
 
Which is hard to get.
 
Heh. A tag badge can be revoked on recalculation, if e.g. things get retagged or closed. So, er, if you only just have a gold tag badge for some tag, and you use it to zap a question with that tag, I guess you can lose the tag badge. ... I don't think that would then invalidate the closure, but it would be entertaining if it did. There'd be an infinite cycle (until you got more suitably-tagged questions or the question got more close votes).
 
Over on SFF I've got nearly 70k rep and still not close to a gold tag badge.
 
Yes.. I still don't even have a silver one yet...
 
Only three silvers have been awarded on @Puzzling, I think. I'm close to getting the fourth.
 
2:25 PM
@GarethMcCaughan Not closed, only deleted.
So if you answer a question, get a gold tag badge out of that, then dupehammer it, then a mod deletes it ...
 
Ah, not quite so automatic. Shame :-).
 
(It would have to be a mod since the OP can't delete a question with an upvoted answer.)
 
only one gold tag badge has been awarded
 
(Yes, three silver tag badges so far. Mathematics for f'', riddle for Rand, word for Rand. I'll be getting silver-riddle soonish.)
 
@GarethMcCaughan Or fifth, perhaps ;-)
I'm close to a silver badge.
 
2:26 PM
sure; I haven't checked who else is close.
 
I've got a long way to go
 
@Randal'Thor well, couldn't you get a tag badge for a non-upvoted answer, if you already had the score component from other answers and only lacked the quantity component?
 
@Sconibulus Oh, true.
 
@Rand wait, why haven't you got silver logical-deduction already? It says you have 611 rep and 85 answers, which is comfortably more than enough. Are a lot of them communitiwikified or something?
oh
no, that's 85 questions, not 85 answers; my mistake
 
Only 71 answers.
Well, 72 now.
 
2:28 PM
or 85 questions+answers, or something. Or maybe the numbers being displayed are just nonsense for some reason.
 
So Harry Potter, and Tom Riddle...
 
Someone needs to make a visual question for rand :P
 
@GarethMcCaughan Probably 85 posts, yeah. I don't think I've posted that many questions in any one tag.
 
I have 123/100 rep for bronze riddle tag, but only 11/20 answers
 
That's pretty common.
 
2:31 PM
@Randal'Thor Easy for you to check that :P
 
Yes, I had that with Harry Potter. I had a score of 150 or so, and 16 answers...
 
On SFF I have 2214/1000 score for but only 122/200 answers.
 
0
Q: Quotation Equation

Gordon KThis is an entry to the Fortnightly Topic Challenge #25: wordplay. An Argentine once left some interesting words. Luckily they were translated to English. Time to chop the end up. I gave my heart for this. Take something from this endless first mate. The way to travel if you're la...

 
Woo more wordplay
 
@Sphinx Those sound a little like cryptics.
 
2:37 PM
@dcfyj I can give a conjecture as to the answer, but am not sure how to derive it from the puzzle yet.
 
If the few answers I have in mind are anything to go by, definitely seems like cryptics but looser
 
elementary.
the Argentine is in Argentina.
 
The Argentine is Borges.
 
@Randal'Thor Likely.
 
Or have I been spending too much time on Literature?
 
2:41 PM
Borges loved wordplay and puzzling works, so he fits in here.
 
I have the same feeling that it ought to be Borges but only because he's one of the not very many Argentinians I can think of. (Maybe "argentine" is being used to mean "silver" and we're looking for Nate or Long John...) And yes, the clues seem to be cryptic-like but looser.
@Silenus Putting up a partial answer with exactly one of the clues done feels to me like a bit of a rep-grab...
 
@GarethMcCaughan, okay thanks for letting me know.
 
I dunno, maybe others don't feel the same awy
*way
(I didn't mean to say you had to delete it!)
 
I was thinking the same thing tbh
 
3:00 PM
@Sphinx "They end by the way used by brewers and bakers" = Y + EAST = YEAST.
That's a standard clue.
 
I have answers for 6,9,10,11,13,14 (and maaaybe 4).
Translating them into Spanish and googling produces nothing useful.
I remark that 14 is the number of lines in a sonnet but have no particular reason to think that that is significant.
I wonder whether "Take something from this endless first mate" might yield EVE ("first mate"!) but I don't see how to get "Take something from this endless" to do it wordplayily.
 
THI[s] + EVE I believe
 
ah!
I was wrong about which bit was def. That must be right.
first letters of translated-into-spanish words looked briefly as if they might be something in English, but if so then probably my online wordlists are inadequate.
(Of course when I say X doesn't work I mean my attempt at X hasn't worked; I would advise others not to trust that, because I make lots of mistakes.)
 
I'm trying to get opinions on the premise, not my drawing.
 
3:15 PM
@Mithrandir Are you sure you're in the right room? ;-)
 
Seems OK, I guess. Do other SE sites have anything like that?
 
@Randal'Thor I was ignored in the other room
@GarethMcCaughan Like what? Community ads?
 
Incidentally, do you want opinions on the spelling? Because "Isaiah" has more "a"s than you gave it.
Like I dunno, whatever you were proposing to do with (some successor of) that image.
 
My typos are irrelevant\
 
@GarethMcCaughan Sure they do.
 
3:18 PM
(for the avoidance of doubt, I wasn't saying "I bet other sites don't have anything like that, so Literature shouldn't". I was expressing actual lack of knowledge.)
 
@Mithrandir You're too quick to assume a chatroom has died when in fact it's just a brief lull. Like I always say:
in The Reading Room, Jan 22 at 17:43, by Rand al'Thor
in Mos Eisley, Jan 10 at 19:10, by Rand al'Thor
Sep 15 '16 at 20:22, by Rand al'Thor
yesterday, by Rand al'Thor
5 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor
Patience, my young padawan.
 
in The Reading Room, yesterday, by Mithrandir
3 hours ago, by Mithrandir
I killed chat again
 
@Mithrandir See, that's another example.
 
@Randal'Thor Don't like lulls.
 
@Mithrandir What language was that?
 
3:22 PM
It was English on the wrong keyboard
עברית
 
Google thinks it's french, which it definitely isn't
 
o_O
61
Hebrew Language

Proposed Q&A site for linguists, teachers and students of the Hebrew Language.

Currently in definition.

 
Ah
okay
 
But google does transliterate it correctly, according to your image
 
true
 
3:40 PM
@MariaDeleva (just coming back - I also had considered 'python' but "pi ton" (which I gather is what you were going for?) doesn't actually sound like "python" so - I'd have to say that wp doesn't work)
 
Sid
@Rubio Looking back at that. Possibly, "three ton" is supposed to hint at "thon"
(Oh, And Good Aftermornight all!)
 
If it were evening perhaps :P
@Sid you should use my new greeting ^^
 
Sid
There you go. :P
 
hehe
I made another one that had evening in it to, but it never got starred, I guess it's because it doesn't flow as well :P
 
@Sid then nothing would clue "py"; i believe my reading is the only one with any hope of completeness, and I don't think it works.
 
3:51 PM
What are we talking about anyhow?
 
Sid
@Rubio How did 3 clue py anyway? 3.14-~3=pi?
 
well see that's the other problem; "over 3000 kgs" would be more than 6600lbs. It'd be over 6 metric tons, and over 3 normal tons, but would still be a good bit more than (pi) tons
 
Sid
@MariaDeleva How was your clue intended to be worked out?
 
Well, my idea was that 3.14 is slightly bigger than 3. And about ton/thon - I didn't realise they sounded so different.
 
1
Q: Community Promotion Ads - 2017

Grace NoteIt is a bit late into this new year, being that we're already in the second month, but we are now cycling the Community Promotion Ads for 2017! What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar....

 
3:59 PM
I guess it was a bad idea, but I am not good at CCs.
 
It should have been something more like 2850 kgs - that'd be just about right. :)
 
As far as I know a ton is 1000kgs.
 
and yeah, I guess 'ton'←→'thon' may be a regional thing
oh, you were going that way. ok
that's a "metric ton"
 
I still have no idea what were talking about :(
 
Well, in my country it is only ton. I just realised there are short and long tons.
 
4:02 PM
aka british "tonne" apparently. :)
 
"Some as big as your head."
 
@Rubio That's because it's from the French
 
Sid
5 hours ago, by Maria Deleva
Perhaps "Snake sounds like over 3000 kilograms. (6)"?
@dcfyj ^
 
@dcfyj I tried constructing a CC and failed at it. :)
 
5 hours ago, by Maria Deleva
Would "Snake, over 3000 kilograms (6)" be a valid CC?
 
Sid
4:02 PM
Ninjaed
 
oops. i'm too slow :)
 
Sid
@Rubio Maybe, the question mark allows ton=thon. Because something's fishy is going on.
 
@Sid I don't think python is too far a stretch for a homophone
@MariaDeleva here's one that Deusovi helped me make much better:

Four-headed mafioso tumbles with untruthful demonic pet(8) (original, had errors in it)

Demonic pets reform endless mafia with deceivers (9)
 
Sid
Yeah, ton=thon isn't quite a homophone but I believe the Question Mark saves the day.
 
@Sid If it's in the CC it would
 
4:05 PM
Eh, I don't know. The question mark isn't just "this clue doesn't exactly work, so I'll just throw it in".
 
Speaking of Deusovi :P
@Deusovi good Aftermornight
 
sshhh, now he'll know we were talking nicely about him.
can't have that.
 
I just mentioned him (less than a minute ago)...
 
Sid
@Deusovi What's the question mark for? I always get confused with that.
 
What? That means I haven't been doing my job properly.
 
4:07 PM
2 days ago, by Deusovi
It just means that something fishy is up.
 
"He knows when you are speaking, he knows when you're awake, he knows if your cryptics are bad or good, so make them good, for Deusovi's sake..."
4
 
Sid
Now, define fishy. How do we know what is to be objectively considered fishy and what shouldn't be?
 
yesterday, by Deusovi
I... can't.
hahaha
(I asked the same thing)
 
I kinda hope "?" doesn't extend far enough to cover non-homophonic 'homophones', but per usual I'm happy to be educated.
 
Sid
Oops, I have gone past my time limit. Good day all.
 
4:09 PM
Yeah, I don't think it would.
Typically it implies that the definition is really misleading.
The example I always bring up is "Mental block" for RUBIK'S CUBE.
It's a holdover from regular crosswords, where those types of things are always indicated.
 
@Deusovi @MariaDeleva Perhaps "Snake's speech with soft spongy support (6)"
 
Can you give the annotation for that one? I'm not quite sure what you're going for.
 
Going for PITH+ON ~ Python
Might need to use another word for pith though
 
Oh, I hadn't heard the word "pith" before.
 
Me and my obscure words haha
 
4:15 PM
You could always do "Language for a snake (6)".
 
True, ddef
Does that make sense @MariaDeleva?
 
or even Language for a snake (3)
 
Ha.
 
If you mean ASP I'm not sure that's exactly a language
 
BOA I believe is
 
4:16 PM
BOA is a technical term in Common Lisp; is it a language in its own right?
 
1
Q: Does magicians actually exist?

user33948Wah! A great show has been put up. You sit in the seat, skeptically looking at the magician in the stage. "Volunteers" he asks "is anybody willing to volunteer on the next act? I need a volunteer". You, somehow, is selected. Slowly, desperately slowly, you enter the stage. The magician declares ...

 
(object constructors in Common Lisp are usually defined to use keyword arguments: (make-king :name "George" :number "3"). But you can define them to use positional ones instead (make-king "George" 3); in that case the parameters are being specified by order of arguments, or b.o.a. -- and so the thing you've thus defined is called ... a BOA constructor.)
 
(oh god, that's terrible. I love it.)
 
Huh. I had never encountered that Boa before.
 
4:19 PM
I don't see how "order of arguments" is b.o.a. though.
 
_b_y _o_rder of _a_rguments
 
by order of arguments
 
...Oh, duh.
 
I don't know whether the term "BOA constructor" was ever actually used much, or whether it's just that Guy Steele felt like having a little joke when he wrote "Common Lisp: the Language". I would not put the latter past him; he was most very extremely fond of puns.
er, is; I don't mean to imply that he's dead or anything
 
It's certainly possible that he's no longer fond of puns though
 
4:20 PM
huh, I thought classic ASP was a scripting language, but I'm apparently wrong, and it just used VBScript
 
Never heard of ASP
 
"Active Server Pages". It's a Microsoft website-making thing.
 
Ah right.
Language for red stone (4)
 
RUBY
 
yup
 
4:23 PM
(or Minecraft, if you take it as a straight clue and ignore the space... and enumeration)
(sort of)
 
I was going to say "...precious stone" but it turns out OPAL is a programming language
Devious, crazy user (7) :P
 
Yeah, sorry, that's already been done
 
No idea
 
@dcfyj The answer to your programming-language question is obviously SARD citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.220.9799 :-).
 
How is sard a red stone?
 
4:29 PM
well, reddish orange, anyway.
 
how indirect are anagrams allowed to be before becoming unfair?
 
@Sconibulus IMO, purely direct.
 
@Sconibulus not at all :P
 
^
 
dizzy canine->God is obviously unfair, but what about something like "dive into endless soup, crazy puzzler (7)"
 
4:31 PM
@Deusovi how do you clue an anagram of multiple words?
 
The issue there is the "into".
 
dive for endless soup?
 
Puzzler puts us in a crazy video (7)
 
@dcfyj Same way you clue an anagram of a single word. I can't think of any indicators that are word-count-specific.
 
ok
@GordonK nice
 
4:34 PM
better without the "a"
 
@GarethMcCaughan True
 
(Except spoonerisms, I guess)
 
Boiled anagram tech, chug user (6, 9)
 
well, it kinda works but the surface reading isn't terribly clear
 
I like the idea, especially using "anagram" as anagram fodder, but the surface reading is... not very good, to be honest.
 
4:38 PM
Yeah I know, but I couldn't pass up the anagram-ception
 
on the other hand, the name in question is pretty painful to anagram so I have some sympathy
 
There are quite a few possibilities actually
 
yeah, and they're mostly pretty uninspiring.
 
I could've grabbed a better one, but I liked the idea of anagraming anagram :P
 
Munch trachea gag! Gaga at churchmen! (actually, if that works then "egg at a churchman" is more promising; perhaps we can use "toss" or something as an anagram indicator)
(I am as it happens irreligious but not especially anticlerical, which is just as well since my father-in-law is an Anglican vicar)
(and so far as I can recall I have never tossed an egg at him)
 
4:42 PM
A man, a gram, a canal, Panama. "a Panama almanac anagram"
 
but it isn't an emordnilap; that's no good!
 
yes, yes.
something had to give ;)
 
hey, I know. what if we had some phrase and, get this!, when you read it backwards it was an anagram of the original phrase?
 
Rag at much change around puzzler (6, 9)
 
4:44 PM
@GarethMcCaughan That's all sentences though.
 
(that was the joke)
 
(That's the joke)
 
I'm doing well at slightly anticipating Deusovi today.
 
lol
 
Hey, I'm not hard to predict. You could replace me with a random cryptic criticism generator and a bot that closehammers questions seemingly at random.
 
4:46 PM
Oh, the clock read 12:03.57, time to closehammer a question!
 
"Yes, an electronic brain," said Frankie, "a simple one would suffice."
"A simple one!" wailed Arthur.
"Yeah," said Zaphod with a sudden evil grin, "you'd just have to program it to say *What?* and *I don't understand* and *Where's the tea?* -- who'd know the difference?"
 
Poor DentArthurDent
 
Oh, must be from one of the books after the first
 
Yes, iirc
 
Can we all just agree to agree, the movie never happened?
 
4:48 PM
I've seen the film and read the first book
 
"agree to agree"
 
The film was wretched.
 
The movie was relatively accurate to the first book as I recall
 
Poor Marvin. Brain the size of the universe, and you're just going to pretend his film didn't exist. Sigh....
@Deusovi That reminds me of when I tell people: "Uh.. Let's not and say we didn't."
 
Lol. I say that semi-regularly.
 
4:50 PM
hehe
 
well, ok, "Let's not and pretend we didn't", if you must be accurate.
 
potato/e :P
 
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