The Sphinx's Lair

7:03 PM

0

Q: Coins in a row, without the usual restriction

I had been asked the following question: n coins are placed on a line such that they touch each other. A move consists in taking either one coin, or two adjacent (touching) coins. Solve the standard version of the game. There are 2 players. I've seen version of this solved, where if two coins w...

Sphinx

7:16 PM

0

Q: Something's wrong

Yet again, my cousin decides to trouble me with another puzzle. Why doesn't he simply stop? Anyway, here's the e-mail again: Hey Sid! I gave up that cruise travel. Too boring. Now, I want to fly!Maybe join, Aviation ministry or something?! Do you know? Dutch->Greek. A place became a prest...

enigmatic-puzzle story

stacksfiller

BADGE + R = BADGER

Rubio

mushroom mushroom?

Matt

huh?

I see BADGER is the C4 answer, but mushroom?

Rubio

badgerbadgerbadger.com

Matt

(will click later)

Rubio

7:28 PM

Enjoy that. You can't ever unwatch it.

And I don't think you'd want to unwatch it anyway :)

Sconibulus

@stacksfiller Aye

@Rubio Snake!

stacksfiller

CCCC: I repeated a joke. (4)

MEME

haha

Yup

7:36 PM

CCCC: Alien behind stones: First Limited Edition Fever Esport! (6,6)

Sphinx

0

Q: The pound is not a finish

In no particular order, do all of the following modifications to the phrase "the pound is not a finish" to reveal a fact: Remove one word. Remove one letter from one word. Change one letter for another letter. Replace one word with an antonym of itself. Remove two letters from one word.

letters

Matt

i see esport and 6,6 and I jump right to ROCKET LEAGUE

L(imited) E(dition) AGUE

Sconibulus

nice

Matt

still need ROCKET

ROCK [ET]

not great at notation

but stones -> rock (plurality error?)

ET = alien

BAM. ROCKET LEAGUE

(I've got like 800 hours therein)

Sconibulus

oops, yeah, I plurality errored

I'm so bad at it, I whiff a lot

but it's so much fun

Matt

7:44 PM

too much fun

Sconibulus

in more puzzley-type news, do you know of a good way to outline text?

Matt

you can use 4 spaces to get monospace, then use hyphens and pipes with plus signs for corners

Sconibulus

ahh, wait, I got it

Matt

CCCC: Officer sounds like a toilet resident (10)

Sconibulus

nah, I was hunting for something like color:red;outline:white;background:black;

Word lets me do it

stacksfiller

7:54 PM

LIEUTENANT = LOO-TENANT

Matt

bingo

Khale_Kitha

How does Loo sound like "Lef?"

(hehehehe)

-____-

haha

because 'Murica

7:55 PM

hah

Matt

I like the surface reading of it

so I've been impatiently watching the accepted palindrome answer, waiting for it to hit 10 ... and it has. I didn't get the badge yet because the text of the badge says "more than 10." D'oh

Khale_Kitha

which puzzle?

Matt

the palindrome challenge: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/49106/…

Khale_Kitha

Looks like it hit 11 just before I found it, lol

stacksfiller

How about instead of trying to hide the indicator, I make a clue that's ALL indicators!

Muahahaha

Matt

7:59 PM

oh dear

stacksfiller

CCCC: Anagrams back-end limits (10)

Khale_Kitha

That sounds like some of the amusing CCCC ideas I've had =D

Matt

that's just plain evil

Khale_Kitha

Actually Deu had one the other day that was all indicators.

Was very confusing.

lol

stacksfiller

What was it?

Matt

8:00 PM

KK, I need the ticked answer to be >10. Then I get my first gold badge by having >2x the ticked answer

Khale_Kitha

oh - there.

I'll see if I can find it

Matt

Thanks!

(now we wait)

Khale_Kitha

I don't recall, offhand, stacks

I don't think I'm going to have time to solve a CCCC soon, so I'm just going to put mine here, if anyone wants to have fun with it.

Causes fermentation, but has no standard European abbreviation. Left no singular article; A phenom, for example, with ordinary sounding lyrics. (7 2 1 3 5)

Matt

wow

Khale_Kitha

Fun surface reading on that, eh? :P

Matt

8:04 PM

I'll tell you when I finish it ...

Khale_Kitha

haha

Don't let Deu see it - he hates long CC's :P

stacksfiller

I'm guessing "Left no" = ON and "singular article" = A

With "lyrics" being the definition

"ordinary sounding" could be PLAIN->PLANE

SNAKES ON A PLANE?

Oh

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

Hehe, gj :P

Somehow...

hah

8:07 PM

I don't know LEAVING at all

phenom = JET

LEAV(EN)ING

it's like 4 CCs in 1

Yeah, that's one that could have been slightly more fun without the enumeration....

.....but also could have been a pain without it.

Matt

I don't understand why it takes so long to award badges

Khale_Kitha

8:11 PM

Likely the site polls periodically - any more than that would induce unnecessary lag.

Matt

there's a task that happens every 5 minutes, hourly, and daily

I guess gold badges aren't in the 5 minute batch

Tag badges run at 3:00am UTC

"Wait 24 hours" waah

Khale_Kitha

Ahh

8 more hours =D

Matt

7? site says it's 20:15 UTC

Sconibulus

whee, I finished my answer key :)

Khale_Kitha

8:37 PM

Yeah, I switched to 8, because it was like 7 hours and a few minutes :P

At the time

Or I looked at my clock wrong - also completely possible. Because in my head, it was prior to 2000 hours

Mithrandir

That's what HNQ does...

Matt

sheesh

Mithrandir

And I got 54 votes on my answer...

Matt

8:59 PM

Populist badge! wooo! Got the gold.

Mithrandir

Congrats

Matt

must be hourly ;)

Mithrandir

I'm close to the +20 answer for -5 question badge

Khale_Kitha

lol - grats, Matt(s)

Mithrandir

*facepalm*

Matt

9:02 PM

hahah

Mithrandir

So everyone give me 3 upvotes here :P (just kidding)

Khale_Kitha

gives a downvote

:P j/k

You didn't specify =D

haha

Mithrandir

@Khale_Kitha You probably can't, it's on Lit anyway :P

17

A: Why was the Obscurus omitted?

It is there... In the Amazon preview of the book, on page 122 there is a chapter on The Obscurus. If you're asking why it's not included in the' beasts' section, probably because: It's not strictly a beast. It's the magic of a wizard that was suppressed, and is sort of a beast. It's a larg...

Sp3000

@Deusovi "Essentially" for middle happens all the time over here so I think that part's fine

It does seem like the type of thing that's not obvious the first time but then sticks with you every time after

Khale_Kitha

@Mithrandir I'll sign up, at some point, when there's some reason to =D

I don't need another site to monitor, right now

Mithrandir

9:09 PM

@Khale_Kitha I have like 100 accounts (exaggeration alert)

I use em for flagging

I've got ~1450 helpful flags on the network

vs 40 declined

ever

Sconibulus

I think I'm at something like 300 helpful 5 declined

Mithrandir

22

Q: Stack Exchange Global Flag Summary

This is a userscript that provides a network wide flag summary for all Stack Exchange sites. If you are logged into the Stack Exchange network and you have this script installed, you can visit the new flags tab in your Stack Exchange profile: How does it work? The script scans your netw...

script flags

Matt

9:30 PM

Progress on my before it's too late puzzle!

PSE Contact

Anybody want some nudges on my puzzle?

Deusovi

Sure.

Sphinx

0

Q: Infinitely simple polygon solipsism

Solipsism — The self is all that can be known to exist. Above is a simple polygon divided into infinitely many different-sized copies of itself. Each copy is √2 = 1.414... times as large as the next smaller one. Can you find another simple polygon that has 4 or more sid...

open-ended dissection

stacksfiller

I'm guessing it has to do with Contact

PSE Contact

What have you got so far?

Mithrandir

9:34 PM

I should look up how to play

PSE Contact

@stacks +1

stacksfiller

Yeah, I thought so

Mithrandir

@PSEContact - include a link to the chatroom for Contact in your info

stacksfiller

I couldn't get things to work out right though

PSE Contact

I did, doesn't come through for some reason

boboquack

9:36 PM

@humn, that looks like a piece of paper! :D

Mithrandir

@PSEContact can I log into your account and see? o_O

:P

You can say no...

Or change the password after...

I won't wreak too much havoc...

Matt

upvote party!

Deusovi

@PSEContact I'll take a look at it

@Mithrandir It's right in their profile.

humn

@boboquack , yes, in A4stralia I gather. In humnited States of America paper doesn't halve self-similarly. (Now to go edit the clarification some troublemaker motivated.)

PSE Contact

(sorry, had to take a call)

so how have you tried interpreting the thing in the blockquote @stacks?

Mithrandir

9:44 PM

@Deusovi not in the chat profile

PSE Contact

oh, I'll edit that now

Matt

I tried interpreting it by staring with varying levels of squinting and intensity

no avail

Deusovi

@Matt what? squinting intensely didn't work? welp, I've got nothing

PSE Contact

heh

Matt

it's my super secret goto method

right after pretending I have no idea what words mean, which in this case, is done for me

boboquack

9:49 PM

Hi @Maria!

PSE Contact

so there are a couple of ways-in, e.g. "Quoth the raven... !..."

boboquack

@PSEContact Bots have to take phone calls?

Deusovi

I'm thinking the dots are indices

Mithrandir

@Deusovi I thought they PSEContact was you at first, because of the Welp in the question :P

PSE Contact

@bobo that's their main job, isn't it? All you hear are prerecorded messages when you call call-centres.

boboquack

9:52 PM

@PSEContact That's why you DON'T call call-centres.

PSE Contact

@Deus how many dots do you find in each group?

Deusovi

3 3 5 3 3, 3 3 5 3 5 3 3

which looks important... somehow...

PSE Contact

3's your standard ellipsis. 5's a bit longer.

Deusovi

Yeah, I'd thought of Morse, but it wouldn't work without letter boundaries

and there are no 7-character Morse things

PSE Contact

but probably it's better to focus on just the clues for now

Maria Deleva

9:54 PM

Hi all

Hey!

@MariaDeleva hey

:)

(whoops, thought someone else came in but it was just the animation being slow)

PSE Contact

Hi. You have entered The Sphinx's Lair. Press 1 to ask a question, 2 to just chat, or 3 to leave the room.

Maria Deleva

9:56 PM

2

boboquack

2

Maria Deleva

lol

Mithrandir

3

Goodnight

Deusovi

...I'm really tempted to kick Mithrandir

just for a minute

Matt

4

Deusovi

9:57 PM

but apparently that'd be "abuse of power" or one of those things that Emrakul keeps lecturing me about

PSE Contact

Error: invalid code. Please press 1, 2 or 3.

Mithrandir

@CMs - watch this one

@PSEContact 3

Night everyone

Maria Deleva

Wait, isn't abuse just short for a beautiful use? I am confused.

Deusovi

Oh, are you actually leaving? Night!

Volatility

night @mith!

Maria Deleva

9:58 PM

Good night, Mithrandir

PSE Contact

so back to my question, e.g. what would "Quoth the raven" clue?

Matt

nevermore

Deusovi

"nevermore", of course

Matt

or edgar allen poe

PSE Contact

+1, +1, -1

Sconibulus

10:00 PM

night night

PSE Contact

alright, what about "!"?

Matt

exclamation point

boboquack

exclamation mark

Matt

"bang" in some circles

boboquack

interjection

Sconibulus

10:01 PM

factorial?

Not?

PSE Contact

there are a bunch of possible interpretations, but which is the most likely given the context?

(helps if you know how the game Contact works)

boboquack

x33

Sconibulus

I am not familiar with that game

boboquack

!

(if the message has been received bit by bit in ASCII)

Deusovi

probably something starting with N

but I can't think of anything

boboquack

10:04 PM

@PSEContact &lit clue!

(Given that lots of people do cryptics)

Is someone going to superstar the CCCC?

PSE Contact

quick rundown: someone (called the defender) thinks of a word, and they reveal the first letter. The others (called the attackers) have to come up with clues referring to a word beginning with that letter, and if the defender can't guess it correctly, and another attacker can, then the defender has to reveal the next letter.

repeat until an attacker guesses the defender's word

so yeah, something beginning with N

someone's said it already

Deusovi

oh, not

boboquack

5 mins ago, by Sconibulus

Not?

PSE Contact

+2

boboquack

Does this affect you:

!!shutdown

PSE Contact

10:08 PM

the bot's not running right now :P

boboquack

Stole back

PSE Contact

so that's the next clue

it's a little bit more difficult, but what should it start with?

Hi @Alconja!

anybody?

morning all

10:16 PM

A letter of the alphabet... I haven't been concentrating on a pattern

Alconja

...and I see that deus' cc finally got solved. :)

PSE Contact

or let's think about it this way: the defender gives you a letter, and someone clues "nevermore". What's the letter?

Rubio

C4 superstarred now

I'm still mostly absent the rest of this week, so happy puzzling all

boboquack

N

PSE Contact

+1

boboquack

10:20 PM

Nicked

PSE Contact

so the attackers have made contact, and the defender has to give another letter

if the next clue clues "not", what's the second letter?

boboquack

O

PSE Contact

+1

boboquack

What I don't get is how we know when the attackers made contact.

PSE Contact

so now again, the defender gives another letter, but we don't know what it is

boboquack

10:23 PM

What clues have we got so far?

PSE Contact

nevermore and not are correct

boboquack

What about in the first line? Have we got any of those?

PSE Contact

you've got a record of communications, but most of it is noise

but from the clues you do have, you can get the message from that

none of Sid's guesses are correct

the top's actually a bit harder to get into, especially when you don't know how the clues work, what the dots mean, etc.

Sphinx

10:38 PM

0

Q: Faulty Weight Scales

You are in a room with 3 digital weight scales and a big book. The digital scales are small like the ones you see in small stores. They are identical in all aspects. They all have a READ button which when pushed gives you a weight reading for 1 second. Readings are in whole pounds, no fractions. ...

logical-deduction

Sphinx

11:23 PM

1

Q: It's Top of the...Oops!

Welcome to the Hit Parade on KIGI radio. That completes our rundown of the top 10-there's some absolute classics in there this week! And what a bunch of new entries as you can see if you've been following us during the programme! This week we have a new number 1 song and would you believe it-it...

enigmatic-puzzle story

Rand al'Thor

11:37 PM

'Allo 'allo. Any 3k+ users around?

Just one more vote needed to close this and this as dupes.

(I nag here because I'm guessing nobody ever checks the meta review queues.)

Alconja

done

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