The Sphinx's Lair

paramesis

12:39 AM

Thanks @GarethMcCaughan for pointing Mordechai in the right direction and, unlike me, keeping a level head about it.

boboquack

12:57 AM

@Deusovi Rude: puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/50304/30903

Deusovi

Got it, thanks.

n_palum

1:18 AM

Why is that rude?

Deusovi

That link is to a (now deleted) answer, not the question.

n_palum

Ohh that's why I didn't get it.. Also have we still not undone the CCCC? Or is Oehm still the only one

Deusovi

Don't think anyone else has solved it.

Sp3000

1:34 AM

I'm slightly amused that the white crows page is pinned though :P

Gareth McCaughan

@Sp3000 the answer to your CCCC is COSMIC LATTE

"Off-white" is def. CrOwS + M (start of "make") + I (one) + CLATTEr.

n_palum

You just blew my mind

Alconja

Can't say I've ever heard of a cosmic latte, but it sounds tasty

Gareth McCaughan

MOehm was deliberately misleading earlier when someone mentioned a specific list of off-white shades and asked "which one", I said it might not be any, and MOehm said "Gareth is right; it isn't any of them"

(because indeed the answer isn't any of the things in that specific list but it is in fact a variety of off-white)

I expect the reason why Sp3000 was amused at the talk of indirect anagrams is because there are in fact no anagrams at all in the clue.

Cosmic latte

Cosmic Latte is a name assigned to the average color of the universe, given by a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry determined that the color of the universe was a greenish white, but they soon corrected their analysis in a 2002 paper, in which they reported that their survey of the color of all light in the universe added up to a slightly beigeish white. The survey included more than 200,000 galaxies, and measured the spectral range of the light from a large volume of the universe. The hexadecimal RGB value for Cosmic Latte is #FFF8E7. ...

"the average colour of the universe"

the . average . colour . of . the . universe

Alconja

huh. there's my today's learning.

Sp3000

1:50 AM

@GarethMcCaughan Yep, bang on everything :) I found the absence of the answer in the list amusing too, but neglected to comment

Gareth McCaughan

If you follow the link from "beige" on that peige, though, the first thing you find is "Cosmic latte".

n_palum

@GarethMcCaughan That was a terrible pun sir

Gareth McCaughan

thank you

Alconja

It was pretty off

Gareth McCaughan

OK, the following isn't a great clue on its merits but it amuses me for reasons that will probably be apparent.

CCCC: Tore about, badly scattered (7)

Deusovi

2:02 AM

Heh.

SP(ILL)ED

All four words are common anagram indicators, but there aren't actually any anagrams.

Gareth McCaughan

Right. And the solution is also an anagram indicator.

I expect it's possible to make a longer clue of the same type -- e.g., maybe using "about" or "around" to signify backwards-ness -- but I didn't want to keep the CCCC community waiting for longer than necessary :-).

was it broken?

Deusovi

nah, just didn't like part of it

Gareth McCaughan

fair enough

Deusovi

...but now you can use this as extra information

welp

Gareth McCaughan

I can promise not to solve it if you like. Don't know whether anyone else saw the removed version.

Deusovi

2:14 AM

eh, here's the clue

CCCC: Robot animals are shelled when eating fruit (9)

I'm not sure how much of an advantage it is

Gareth McCaughan

fwiw it doesn't feel like a big advantage; I think the main impact is that there's one possible interpretation of a key word that I can probably safely ignore.

boboquack

2:29 AM

@GarethMcCaughan RO's can see :P

Gareth McCaughan

oh yes, so we can. As it happens I already saw it briefly before the deletion, but it means that e.g. Rubio would be at a slight advantage in solving this one.

Deusovi

But Rubio wouldn't use his power for evil, right?

...Wait, he definitely would.

Gareth McCaughan

what else is power for?

Deusovi

Fair enough.

boboquack

@GarethMcCaughan I use power to charge my phone

Gareth McCaughan

2:35 AM

sounds pretty evil to me

Deusovi

Yeah, why do you think I became a mod in the first place? :P

boboquack

4:05 AM

Can we unstar the white crows thing?

Deusovi

Done.

boboquack

Thanks!

Sphinx

4:21 AM

0

Q: What does it want?

So, I found this image. I feel like it wants something You might wanna go ahead and download the image, because it will be useful to be able to scribble around on the image for counting and stuff. It won't mind What does this image want? P.S. The puzzle is all in the image. It knows to tell ...

Beastly Gerbil

7:13 AM

Well, the retrograde-analysis fortnightly challenge has got off to a flyer. No posts yet.

Maybe we should include a link here

Not much help actually...

Sphinx

11:04 AM

0

Q: Stuck on this meta puzzle

I've been working on this meta puzzle all day and can't get over the last hurdle (https://www.sporcle.com/games/jyrops/avj_puzzle_hunt_04). I solved the initial puzzle, but there's a two word sequence hidden in the final solution. When you pick each flag, you get a series of capital N, S, E, W, ...

cipher enigmatic-puzzle metapuzzles flags

Sphinx

12:00 PM

1

Q: A Farewell Message From My Toys!

Remember the day when you grew up and didn't wanted to play anymore with toys? Well, I remember the same happening with me. But, well, my toys were smart. And may be they left a goodbye message for me. ** ** ** ** ...

enigmatic-puzzle visual

n_palum

1:45 PM

@BeastlyGerbil I don't know how to make them so I can't really contribute :/

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