The Sphinx's Lair

Sphinx

00:34

0

This is part of my "guess the 4-digit number" series. If you like, you can see the other puzzles here, here, here and here. I will skip the backstory this time (or maybe add it later), just will ask you to open this lock. P.S. I will appreciate if you give me feedback in case the puzzle is to...

visual

Gareth McCaughan

@Sconibulus I understand somewhat more of the alien message thing. But right now is Contact time :-).

Gareth McCaughan

01:45

@Sconibulus so, I propose the following translations: 44-48 are respectively PERSON, SAYS, WHAT?, HAS, and GIVES, and each section of the block featuring those is a little conversation.

then in the last block presumably the aliens (if they are aliens) are describing themselves and their planet, star, etc., and asking about ours.

They want to know how much we weigh (they weigh about 52kg), what we're made of (roughly the same as them, it seems), what our planet's surface is made of (very much like theirs, it appears), what our star is made of (much the same as theirs, again). They seem to be saying their star system is binary.

Then the last bit seems like it might be proposing a trade where we sell them glucose and they sell us uranium, and they want to know what we propose for the other side of each trade? But that's rather strange.

I still haven't found any binary stars with the right masses, though, and it seems like that's a crucial part of the picture.

Sconibulus

Huh, that sounds interesting

how close are the masses to our sun?

Rubio

02:06

about 10 kilometers away. very close orbit. ;)

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio ho ho. @Sconibulus one is about 1.2 solar masses, one is about 0.15 solar masses. Unless I screwed up my arithmetic, of course, which is very possible; you might want to check.

Sphinx

04:55

2

Q: What a Contradiction?

This contradiction, you must see, please take a guess, what must I be? To toss the outside, and keep the rest... but keep the outside and toss the mess!

riddle rhyme

stack reader

05:11

I just got a sudden idea for a simple riddle, but it still feels sort of iffy.... I wonder if it's a bad idea to ask for opinions here.... if people who read the chat room answer my question it would kinda be a bummer XD

Techidiot

But if you ask for opinion on an idea, wouldn't that spoil your idea? ;)

stack reader

05:28

Well whatever, I will trust the good people who read this to not answer my riddle XD.

Tell me what you think of a riddle like the following. Keep in mind I will probably use the riddle and lateral thinking tags.

Techidiot

Okay

Go ahead..

stack reader

Big or small. long or short ...... yet has no physical shapes.

I would probably add a few more physical opposites in the middle.

Techidiot

Hmm.. Air Packet?

stack reader

naw more lateral.

Techidiot

Or Voice

Voice fits nicely

Alconja

05:32

Seems pretty broad. Lots of intangible things could fit... lives, ideas, time, etc

stack reader

maybe with only those 2 lines. what if I add hard or soft and roundish or squarish etc.

I was thinking of accepting an answer like "perception" or "opinion". But afraid it might be a bit iffy.

Alconja

my personal opinion (and that's all it is, so still do what you want) is that it will be pretty hard to make something like that not too broad...

also, roundish/squarish opinions?

stack reader

I meant like the human interpretation/opinion/perception of something. not the concept of an opinion itself.

Everything can be seen as big or small, it all depends on your point of view.

I guess I should give up. I feel like I am close to something but I don't want people to get irritated when they find out the answer.... Just want everyone to have fun.

Alconja

Yeah, it's a bit abstract. And once a riddle is abstract, it's easy to find other abstract concepts that fit (which makes the answer, when revealed, much less satisfying).

Not to say you shouldn't do it, but if you do, you should try to find some more clues which are less ambiguous (maybe some wordplay stuff)

stack reader

05:52

What if I finish with : "what I am depends on you, yet you have no control over what I am. Whatever you make me out to be, I am sure your neighbor will disagree."

Techidiot

you have no control over what I am makes it too obvious

Thin line between too broad and too obvious ;)

stack reader

awww, but it sounded good being the opposite of "what I am depends on you" XD

Techidiot

Just opinions. If you like it, you can post it :)

stack reader

I wonder if lateral thinking is pushing it a little if I add these lines at the end....

Sphinx

06:33

0

Q: What I am depends on you, yet you have no control over what I am.

I am big or small, tall or short, soft or hard, cold or hot, yet I am devoid of a physical shape. What I am depends on you, yet you have no control over what I am. Whatever you make me out to be, perhaps your neighbor will disagree. What am I?

riddle

ffao

07:32

Agreed with Alconja that I am X / opposite of X can fit pretty much anything intangible

The facr that basically every riddle ends up having such lines is good evidence of their non-descriptiveness

Techidiot

09:59

@stackreader Was your riddle's answer stolen? :-/

stack reader

10:16

@Techidiot Which riddle? which answer? who's the thief? XD

Techidiot

I thought your riddle caught an immediate answers :) One of them is now deleted.

stack reader

yeah, when I posted my riddle, I got an answer alert, but when I clicked to see, it was gone...

Techidiot

@stackreader Or you can reach 10K and see them.

stack reader

If only I could become a MOD to see deleted answers ;P

oooh, but that will take times. Rubio is taking all the reps :P

Techidiot

11:36

I dislike the idea of guessing and back solving. :(

Techidiot

11:57

Am I being told that I answered my own question ? Or am I reading it wrong?

I'm sorry I didn't realise you wrote this answer as I didn't see your spoilers. Do you have any proof that I looked at your answer? And I'm Gonna ask you: How you got to this level? well I think you must have "plagiarised" my answer without giving me any credit! — S. Rafael 10 mins ago

Beastly Gerbil

You are reading it wrong

He's talking to the guy who answered not you

(I think)

Techidiot

@BeastlyGerbil Yeah. I got it. Was too late to edit that. Thanks

But, quite a lot is being said in those comments.

n_palum

12:56

GaMen

CalvT

So I've got my follow on puzzle done, just stuck for a title

n_palum

Don't overthink it IMO

Catchy and or related

CalvT

A mysterious note has appeared, but it's not necessarily linked to the stolen car

Ok

Boom

Sphinx you're too slow

@n_palum careful when you edit puzzles :P

n_palum

Ah I see.. well it's very hard to tell that the S is capitalized in the image

CalvT

That's why I added it below

n_palum

13:10

Gotcha. Well providing text versions of content from an image is usually just done as a courtesy and not really a hint

CalvT

Yup fair enough. One thing - at some time in the puzzle you are going to curse me due to text as image. Ping me, and I'll provide the text

Sphinx

0

Q: Can a note that makes no sense help find my friends' car?

So my friend (the one who had his car stolen) just found this taped to his door. I can't help thinking that it's related. What do you think? Here is the text of the note: I just simply cannot believe that this badger just ate like 8 great big steaming Sausage rolls, what an animal

enigmatic-puzzle

Beastly Gerbil

@CalvT woo a follow up! :P

n_palum

@BeastlyGerbil Get to work :P

Beastly Gerbil

second image seems to indicate a key

CalvT

13:22

@BeastlyGerbil If this one is good enough, and my imagination as well, then there will be a third ;)

Beastly Gerbil

keep em comin :P

n_palum

Yup, and for the first one my gut says FOR(E) as a 'golf shout'

Beastly Gerbil

four key

oh @calvt I added a link to the previous puzzle, to help people understand the backstory

idea sparks

cogs roll

give me a minute to see

n_palum

Ohh we're thinking now

Beastly Gerbil

nope apparently not

CalvT

13:26

@BeastlyGerbil what did you think?

Beastly Gerbil

I was thinking perhaps the first letters of the message was a message, the key either being 'four/fore' or it being rot4/22

CalvT

You (both) got the pictures right though

n_palum

We* :P

Beastly Gerbil

I still think that the first letters are important because the random 8 in it seems to indicate imgur again

oh deusovi...

n_palum

HA Deus

Beastly Gerbil

13:27

didn't get here quick enough :P

n_palum

@Deusovi You sneaky man

Techidiot

Or may be capital letters

Starting from the title itself

That clock shows 6.30 time which could be just 6(hr hand)

CalvT

I've suggested an edit to the answer with the binary

17 mins ago, by CalvT

Yup fair enough. One thing - at some time in the puzzle you are going to curse me due to text as image. Ping me, and I'll provide the text

n_palum

Yup figured

Beastly Gerbil

WFhs Q9wg WBrh MTIu SARG
sdFB gHg4 ODE0 wBrT b9pW
qYr9 NDE4 w9Gh EIrh G0w2
Ci0w ERHg J924 8Yh9 LjIy
wOHB 4WO5 8wSD NDQ4 9GH2
9G4h IBRw ClJv VWr9 5t8E
VHWE b205 fbdh WOEu HVt2

translated ^ (@deus)

they all seem like incomplete imgurs

CalvT

13:31

For someone over 2k... puzzling.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/28553

Kritixi Lithos

@BeastlyGerbil How did you do that so fast?

Techidiot

Done

Beastly Gerbil

@KritixiLithos @CalvT suggested an edit with the transcribed binary, I just converted

n_palum

Not hard to toss it into a converter

Beastly Gerbil

I am not that quick :P

no idea now

Kritixi Lithos

13:34

Maybe we need to try reversing the binary string

Deusovi

Apologies for not checking chat - I did all that from bed :P

nah, it's just base64 again - have to remove the spaces though

CalvT

I've got to go out now, but I'll just say that the initial key is important through the whole puzzle

Deusovi

...hm, maybe not

CalvT

And again - I'm impressed by how fast you guys are

Techidiot

No it doesn't look like base64.

Kritixi Lithos

13:36

Reversing it and then parsing the binary leads to

L.j®¢òê&Ff¬ LF¢êjP¢.¬NêjnR6ÂîJB,âPLâ,"r"Êî¬òê,BòîPV2‌,LRæJ¢î ÂPLî âN¢âî,¢"rNPêF*NBî ¢"ò,ææBb&ÎPâJÊ®*²‌NBêæîÎbê

, so yeah, maybe base64

Deusovi

Any ideas what the second image is supposed to be?

No reason to reverse it. ASCII always starts with 0.

Beastly Gerbil

what at the start

Its supposed to be 'FOUR' 'KEY'

Deusovi

Ah, alright. I didn't get the "key" part.

it's just every fourth of that

that starts with "Had"

hm, it seems to not work past the first line

...oh, I had caps lock on and was typing things in with the wrong capitalization

that would explain why things weren't working out, but also kills the "Had" thing

Beastly Gerbil

lol

Kritixi Lithos

I got something!

Deusovi

13:45

What is it?

Kritixi Lithos

Taking every 4th set of characters of the decoded binary string and then base-64ing that gives this:

12.814418
-0.22448
Room9}aX.[v

Deusovi

ah, every fourth set

Sconibulus

that ending doesn't look promising

Deusovi

it's just

12.814418
-0.22448
Room9

Beastly Gerbil

Unnamed Road, Burkina Faso
Latitude: 12.814418 | Longitude: -0.22448

so room 9 of a house there?

CalvT

13:48

Right but wrong

You need to land on a hotel

Beastly Gerbil

oh

Deusovi

well, I don't know any other ways to translate between numbers and geographic locations

n_palum

Hotels near Piela, Burkina Faso maplandia.com/burkina-faso/gnagna/piela/piela/hotels

Not that it helps

Beastly Gerbil

@CalvT you sure those coordinates are right?

Swapping them round doesn't give anything

Kritixi Lithos

Maybe we have to add/subtract 9 to the coordinates

Deusovi

14:00

I tried multiplying by 4 already

CalvT

@Deusovi you sure?

Deusovi

...Yeah, pretty sure. It gets close to a hotel, but not on one

but from your message, I'm going to assume that's correct

n_palum

That's a really.. random location.. a hotel in Burkina Faso

Deusovi

it's in England, not Burkina Faso

CalvT

@Deusovi what hotel? ;)

n_palum

14:09

Ooo that's better then

Beastly Gerbil

oh nice 'four' seasons hotel

CalvT

Not room 9 though @Deusovi

Beastly Gerbil

oh really?

the room 9 garage ?

Sconibulus

room 36?

Beastly Gerbil

oh maybe

times everything by 4

@calvt any of the above ^ ?

n_palum

14:18

They did say they have to go soon, maybe gone

Oh, btw @Deusovi I finally caught up on SU thanks to the site you gave me.. Did you watch the newest one + the promo?

CalvT

4 x 9

Sorry I'm out - on mobile

@Sconibulus you are right (paging @Deusovi)

Mithrandir

Bleh. Dealing with chat moderation is worse than the main site, in my experience. (as a piece of advice for any candidates :P)

GentlePurpleRain

@Mithrandir I assume you're talking about other sites? I find that Puzzling requires little-to-no chat moderation.

Mithrandir

@GentlePurpleRain yes.

n_palum

14:34

You tryna dissuade the competition?

Mithrandir

Especially when the Shog comes in and freezes the room, renames it to call out some people, and deletes the room. For the main chatroom for the site. And now there's a hullabaloo on that meta. >.<

Anyway, how's the day going for those who didn't have to (yawn) get up at Am?

Sconibulus

that sounds... interesting

Ankoganit

@Mithrandir Why on earth does shog do that?:O

Sconibulus

storytime?

Mithrandir

@Ankoganit because that room has... History.

Ankoganit

14:36

Wow

Mithrandir

@Sconibulus you can go look at SFF meta if you're interested

n_palum

Story, Story, Story

Waking up in AM is an everyday thing when you work :P

Mithrandir

Yeah, but I usually wake up at 8.

Sconibulus

true, it's the worst part of work

Mithrandir

@n_palum ^^^

Here: scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10913/…

Anyway, yeah, that's an example of some of the downsides of having a diamond.

@CalvT - you may want to consider using the tag imgur-maze?

Sconibulus

14:42

these metas seem to have no information other than 'you did a bad thing'

Mithrandir

I realized that I left out the 5 in my message about getting up early o_o

@Sconibulus it's probably best to wait until the SFF mods turn up

n_palum

A lot of the stuff has been removed anyway so it's hard to tell what happened

@Mithrandir That's only an hour ish before I get up

Business Cat

Yeah now I'm just more curious

n_palum

@Mithrandir Also it's not an imgur maze

Business Cat

I'm not familiar with the room, how bad was it exactly?

Since it had a reputation

Sconibulus

14:46

This meta post has a little information in one of the answers

Mithrandir

Whatever. It doesn't matter; I was just pointing out that mods do actually have to deal with stuff occasionally.

Sid

Hmm, so, Mos Eisley got frozen permanently.

dcfyj

@Sconibulus Apparently somebody did something very stupid

Mithrandir

Anyway, didn't mean to start a whole discussion...

dcfyj

True, this is not really something that needs talking about here, it's SFF's job to deal with it. On to other things

Sconibulus

14:55

Eh, the discussion would have started later when we noticed :)

Mithrandir

Before I check, did JonMark Perry respond to any of my questions yet?

dcfyj

?

@Mithrandir about...?

Mithrandir

Questionnaire answers

Sid

Despite what people think, I believe this election would be quite close.

4

Sconibulus

nope

Sid

15:00

We seem to have pretty decent candidates.

Sconibulus

he seems to be an even less serious candidate than Rubio

and that guy's platform is banning himself

Mithrandir

@Sid yep.

As @Mithrandir's plethora of questions implies, your answers are very terse, and don't provide a lot of information, in most cases. You might want to consider expanding your answers to provide more detail. — GentlePurpleRain ♦ yesterday

dcfyj

It doesn't appear that he answered them, but I didn't look that closely

n_palum

No he didn't answer them, the last thing said on there was Techi agreeing you could ask him questions.

Mithrandir

:/

n_palum

15:02

I don't think he cares all too much considering his initial response. I found it interesting too that someone pointed out he went badge hunting

Side note, @Sconibulus your 4C is still bugging me

Sconibulus

I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be there when I woke up this morning :)

Rubio

@Sconibulus I hope my in-depth questionnaire answers are clear indication that I'm a serious candidate (whose ostensible platform is a running meme here, for some unknown but amusing reason)

n_palum

You gunna build a menagerie for PSE if you win Rubio?

Sconibulus

@Rubio This may be a problem, since probably 10% of the votes will come from denizens of TSL

dcfyj

Wouldn't PSE have to have animals to require the need to build a menagerie? (@BeastlyGerbil doesn't count)

Sconibulus

15:09

I did think you were being serious though, but the joke presentation may end up costing you

Beastly Gerbil

@dcfyj :P

dcfyj

I'm a Gerbil summoner!

Sconibulus

yeah, we've got a rodent, a marsupial, and a dog

Rubio

Well. My plan actually was to change my intro text before the election proper begins, so there's that. The 90% who don't know what it's about are probably the ones not following the elections all that closely (yet) either.

Sconibulus

what more do we need?

dcfyj

15:11

I know the second (although I don't think it really counts) who's the dog?

n_palum

There is also a cat lurking and Emrakul is kind of an owl no?

dcfyj

@n_palum His picture maybe, but Emrakul is a MtG card

And I assure you, it looks nothing like an owl.

Sconibulus

Emrakul is an eldritch horror from beyond space and time

5

n_palum

Okay well going off of pictures then

Sconibulus

as for the dog... well, it's the internet, so I don't want to unmask them without their permission

Beastly Gerbil

15:12

@Sconibulus do you want to get banned? You can't say stuff like that about mods :P

dcfyj

@BeastlyGerbil In this case he just has to hold out for a few days and he'll be fine, right?

Sconibulus

I didn't say they were a bad person or anything, this is just backstory, right? :)

n_palum

Isn't Rubio a dog?

dcfyj

I see no d or g in his name

Not to mention his picture is a coke can (since you're going off of pictures)

Beastly Gerbil

I think Gareth might be an octopus considering he can solve so many puzzles simultaneously

dcfyj

15:15

lol

Mithrandir

May 8 at 15:49, by Rubio

That was a bad fur day

Business Cat

Did someone say cat lurking?

dcfyj

Apparently

@Mithrandir heh

n_palum

I'm trying to find the "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog" he has posted

So I had posted that dog with a diet coke saying I found him on the internet

in Contact, Apr 27 at 16:24, by Rubio

On the Internet, nobody can tell you're a ... um, ... hydrogen atom.

in Contact, Apr 25 at 19:20, by Rubio

Of course, I'm a dog, so that's not that surprising

in Contact, Apr 25 at 19:20, by Rubio

There we go

CalvT

Is it acceptable for me to edit the answer on my question to point out all the clues? I add in too many, so it's possible to solve it without using them all, but I'd like them in the answer

dcfyj

15:27

If his answer is correct (and you've marked it as such) I see no problem with that. Alternatively you could ask him to hunt down the rest (although I don't do that one very often)

Beastly Gerbil

just right under his answers in italics 'OP clarification: ... and thats fine

CalvT

His answer isn't quite correct (yet). The right room is in the comments below. But apart from that it's fine

Ok

Sid

@Scon I don't think there is any issue with Rubio's words. Precisely because I feel anyone and everyone knows it is a joke to just lighten up the mood. (Besides, some guy recently won an election on that platform. It's not a bad thing to copy a winning formula. :P)

Sconibulus

I think I agree for everyone in chat

I am less certain for those who don't have much experience seeing him talk

Deusovi

15:48

@CalvT - fixed!

@n_palum Nope, not yet!

Sphinx

1

Q: A warning to the wise - What am I?

I begin with deception in the way that I act Then grow in obsession with only the facts I sometimes yell loudly and sometimes I whisper Some things may confound me but don't let me wither For if I'm neglected in present or past Your life is affected and peace may not last What am...

riddle word wordplay rhyme

n_palum

@Deusovi :O At least watch the promo, it's like 10 seconds but :O

CalvT

Ok here's my edits puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/51730/…

stack reader

Well that is awkward... the answer I checked as selected got deleted by the owner...

Beastly Gerbil

approved

n_palum

16:01

@stackreader I saw that, was odd

Idk if anyone else is getting this, but I'm getting random upvotes on old answers over the past hour or two

Beastly Gerbil

nope just you

they'll get reversed some time soon

CalvT

@n_palum how many?

They only get reversed if at least 3 from same person I think

Beastly Gerbil

its only been 2 hasn't it?

n_palum

It's been 2

GentlePurpleRain

I think the algorithm for detecting vote fraud is actually very complex, and depends on all kinds of different things (just going on hearsay -- I don't know what the algorithm actually is...)

Beastly Gerbil

16:04

@n_palum then thast not serial voting

n_palum

They've been spread out

CalvT

The reversal thing is a mysterious beast but the general conscientious in SOCVR is it has to be 3=<

n_palum

I wasn't implying it was serial voting.. but was just curious if anyone else had gotten some

GentlePurpleRain

@n_palum I've had that happen before. Sometimes it's someone who sees an answer of yours and likes it, so they click through to read some other answers and end up upvoting some of them.

n_palum

They were older answers.. like a word search from a month ago

Yeah maybe

Beastly Gerbil

16:05

it could just be two completely different people who hapoened to see them

Sid

I had gotten serial downvotes once. They got reversed. But I still lost like 10-15 odd rep.

Beastly Gerbil

happened to me before

n_palum

While perusing around old stuff, I came across this: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/51376/…

Gerbil you're better than that /s

Beastly Gerbil

what did I do?

n_palum

Read the comment you made

Beastly Gerbil

16:06

'Emrakul your welcome! Someone had to do something related to your name!' ?

incesterror21

you're*

Beastly Gerbil

uh hum

n_palum

^^

Beastly Gerbil

that won't be the first or last time I make a typo

n_palum

Just teasing since I came across it

Beastly Gerbil

16:08

searches n_palums posts for revenge typos :P

Carcosa

Hey all, it's been a while

n_palum

Haha you'll probably find quite a few

GentlePurpleRain

@n_palum What are you talking about? It looks like "you're" to me... :P

CalvT

Any feedback on the puzzle btw? Do/don't that I did/didn't etc

n_palum

@GentlePurpleRain You went and changed it!

Beastly Gerbil

16:09

I prefered the first, but I thought the four them was good

@n_palum I didn't I can't GPR did probably :P

GentlePurpleRain

No, it was actually me that changed it. You can't change your own comments after a given time (I think about 5 minutes).

n_palum

Agreed on first being better

What a nice mod :P

incesterror21

Maybe the spelling was part of a puzzle...

Beastly Gerbil

@CalvT general advice: Don't have massively lengthy strings of binary or stuff which we need to transcribe, and try not to use the same cipher twice or have too many ciphers. Mix things up like you did in the first puzzle

Mithrandir

One thing to note about editing other people's comments: if it's a reply to you, it won't show up in your inbox anymore.

And editing typos is generally discouraged, but in this case it was funny...: P

Sid

16:12

@MikeQ Hey. You hadn't been here for a long time.

Mithrandir

@MikeQ ✋

Mike Q

Trying out the latest CCCC. Any meaning to the difference between semicolons, colons, and commas?

Sid

Rubio's advice- Step 1: Ignore punctuation

n_palum

Scon was supposedly trying to make it read theatrically

GentlePurpleRain

@Mithrandir What's wrong with editing typos? Shouldn't we try to make things as readable as possible?

@BeastlyGerbil @n_palum Found one!

@Techidiot sorry, still newer to the site and not familiar with every single tag.. will make note of that for future riddles... All feedback is welcome! I'm not sure if this one was bad or something since it took a lot of push to get some anwers — n_palum Mar 2 at 13:14

(the last word)

Mithrandir

16:16

@GentlePurpleRain dunno. That's what Meta.SE says.

Beastly Gerbil

hehe :P

GentlePurpleRain

@Mithrandir Is that in posts, or comments? I could understand the argument for not editing typos in posts, because they maintain an edit history, and get bumped to the top of the list, but neither of those apply to comments.

n_palum

@GentlePurpleRain I've been found out!

GentlePurpleRain

@Mithrandir This is what I found on the topic, which seems to contradict you:

70

Q: Should users edit other users' posts to correct grammar and spelling problems?

Question says it all: Should users edit other users' posts to correct grammar and spelling problems? I've seen arguments both ways, and lean toward yes...but...

discussion edits etiquette edit-rights

Sconibulus

we're not supposed to edit typos? I thought those were the main things edits were for

GentlePurpleRain

16:22

@Sconibulus According to what I could find on Meta, Mithrandir is mistaken.

Mike Q

Probably incorrect:
BUMMER, def = tragic
wordplay = "western" (left) letter of Bare (open), U-Hauls (lorries), Mechanized (unmanned), Marred (wrecked), Endless (countless), Rusty (rust-laden)

n_palum

I think we are not supposed to do mass typo edit sprees, or minor ones. On arqade there are always newer or anon users that submit edits for like one word or a period but those are usually rejected (at least I do) because it doesn't improve the post and only really earns them their 2 rep and a bump to the top of active.

GentlePurpleRain

@MikeQ :

18 hours ago, by Sconibulus

'Countless Rust' is an... atom for lack of a better word, it joins together to make one thing, which may or may not be operated on by other things

n_palum

That's not a bad find @MikeQ - but yeah what GPR just linked ^

GentlePurpleRain

@n_palum If you don't have enough rep to make edits on your own, you have to make a change that meets a certain threshold (I think at least 6 characters or something). But once you have enough rep, you are able to make even one-character changes unilaterally.

n_palum

16:28

Yeah I know, but I find that those little, 6 character minimum edits for things that don't improve the post are unnecessary

I'm passed the threshold over there :P

Deusovi

@stackreader No, not by the owner. The account was destroyed.

GentlePurpleRain

If the solution to the CCCC is in fact something like what MikeQ proposed, I would argue that it is very much like an indirect anagram. If "Western" is cluing the first letter of a bunch of words, I would expect it to be the actual words in the clue, not synonyms (since that would present so many possibilities as to be insoluble).

Deusovi

Agreed.

Beastly Gerbil

its more likely to me that the def is 'Tragic Western'

n_palum

^ I've been googling dramatic westerns but nothing helpful comes up (that are 6 letters)

Beastly Gerbil

16:32

and also note that after those two words, there are 6 other words

Or 6 and a possible indicator if we count rust-laden as two words

GentlePurpleRain

This obviously refers to the little-known Western Oluwcr

Sconibulus

Yeah, it's the tragic story of a collapsing hrung :)

Beastly Gerbil

wrecked could be anagram indicator

GentlePurpleRain

I was wondering if the words could be consecutive instructions for manipulating a word. Start with (maybe) OPENLORRIES, then remove a synonym for "man" (unmanned), then anagram (wrecked), then...

ffao

What would "countless rust" be as an instruction though?

GentlePurpleRain

16:37

Taking PERSON from OPENLORRIES leaves you with LORIE.

@ffao Hence my "..."

Beastly Gerbil

remove rust ?

n_palum

If countless rust = atom, laden could mean put that in whatever other word we have

@Deusovi youtube.com/watch?v=sMTWByWBk_Q

Deusovi

can't watch now - on mobile

planning to watch the episode as soon as I get a chance

GentlePurpleRain

Rust (disambiguation)

Rust is a general term for a series of iron oxides. Rust may also refer to: == Science and technology == Rust (color) Rust (fungus), fungi of the order Uredinales Rust (programming language), a programming language created by Graydon Hoare and Mozilla Research Soybean rust, a disease affecting soybeans == Places == === Europe === Rust, Burgenland, in Burgenland, Austria Rust im Tullnerfeld, in Lower Austria Rust, Baden-Württemberg, a town in Germany Europapark Rust, a theme park in Germany === United States === El Cerrito, California, formerly known as Rust Rust Township, Michigan R...

n_palum

That's just the promo

For the 1 hour special in a couple weeks

Deusovi

16:43

oooh

Mike Q

so part of it is (((open lorries) unmanned) wrecked) = anagram of LORIE

GentlePurpleRain

@MikeQ If we are correct (which is uncertain).

Sid

Rust= Fe2O3.xH20 If you remove the numbers, possibly FEOXH.

Which makes zero sense.

Mike Q

@Sid It's arguably "countless rust"

GentlePurpleRain

All words that are anagrams of LORIE + 1 letter:

BOILER
COILER
HOLIER
LOGIER
LOITER
LORIES
MOILER
NEROLI
OILERS
OILIER
ORIELS
ORIOLE
REBOIL
RECOIL
REOILS
ROILED
TOILER

Beastly Gerbil

16:52

and def is laden or tragic or tragic western...

none of those seem likely....

Mike Q

Maybe start with "countless rust" and then move backward? With the def being "laden"?

n_palum

Yeah @Sid what does countless rust mean to you as an atom

Sid

In a nutshell, Iron. So, FE

Beastly Gerbil

rust laden could just mean F----E

manshu

iron is not the only thing in rust.

Mike Q

16:54

But rust is iron oxide, not just iron. So countless would be FEO, FEOH, FEOHO, or FEOOH

manshu

is iron the only thing that rusts?

n_palum

Open Lorries could just be L

Mike Q

@manshu "Rusting is the common term for corrosion of iron and its alloys, such as steel. Many other metals undergo similar corrosion, but the resulting oxides are not commonly called rust." - wikipedia

manshu

then it is just for iron :p

Transcript for