The Sphinx's Lair

Q: Riddle that gives clues to where a rock is hidden?

12:27 AM

0

Summit Rock Hunters, it's time for rock too, so many are looking, so how about u? Some will search little for this Rock, others around-the-clock. Old clues, new clues, some might bend, try to remember, or just ask a friend. Kiddos please, can you help the older, some think they're getting hot, bu...

riddle

boboquack

2:26 AM

@paramesis Congrats on 1k

paramesis

@boboquack Thanks!

logical-deduction grid-deduction

3

Q: Hexagonal Kurokuron

Kurokuron (クロクロ一ン: "black clone"), is a shading puzzle that first appeared in Puzzle Communication Nikoli issues 153-155. Identical rules apply to a hexagonal grid. Rules Shade some cells such that: Bold-outlined regions contain exactly two shapes, made up of contiguous groups of 1 or more sh...

ffao

5:21 AM

I wholeheartedly agree with Rubio's assessment of the helpfulness of that hint

3

5:33 AM

... That is not a hint. Enigmatic puzzle is always meant to be something else.

In other news, the next few days in the UK are going to be an utter political sh!tstorm.

Yeah. I was following the election. May's gamble backfired badly

And that was a pretty decent turnout as well. 70% turnout isn't common, I think.

However, since the DUP have apparently thrown their support to the Conservatives, every last seat still counts.

If the Tories can get at least half of the remaining 9 (out of 650) seats, they can still form a coalition with an extremely slim majority.

Coalition governments are bad. In any case, May was looking for a greater majority. She has got a coalition government for her troubles.

Projections say Conservatives to get 317 seats and Labour to get 263. Add DUP to it, Conservatives get a wafer thin majority of 327.

So.. In all probability, you guys have to go out and vote again within the next 2-3 years.

Pffft. Won't THAT be fun.

Or the next 2-3 weeks, actually.

in The Bridge, 2 hours ago, by Tim Stone

@Unionhawk There could be an immediate call for a vote of no confidence in the minority government, which if it succeeds, requires the minority government to gain confidence within 14 days or another general election is held

5:49 AM

That is exactly why people hate coalition government. Instability.

Oh for goodness sake. The EU negotiations are supposed to start on 19 June - exactly the same day as the Queen's Speech, which AFAICT is the first testing ground for whichever party is going to make the first bid for government.

ffao

sorry for my ignorance, but what is "first bid for government" supposed to mean?

I'm used to whoever wins the election being automatically the governing party

@Sid I don't know. If anything, people associate coalitions with slow progress, not instability, because there's always a consensus to be made. Here in Germany, we haven't had a non-coalition government for ages. (But, of course, the political system and the election mode are different from the UK's.)

@ffao In this case, nobody has won the election. It's a hung parliament.

@ffao In a multi-party parliament, the party that holds the most seats can negotiate with other parties about a coalition in order to have an absolute majority when electiong the PM. If that fails, the other parties can try to form a coalition.

6:01 AM

AIUI, the Tories get the first bid for government, either because they're the incumbents or because they got the most seats, but if they can't get their proposed stuff through, then Labour gets to have a go instead.

(I'm being a bit vague here because I don't know all the details of how this stuff works.)

Well, instability directly relates to slow economic growth.

Also, stay tuned for another round of Tory Backstabbing, the panel game of the century.

@MOehm if I am not wrong, Germany is going to polls this year.

@Sid Yes, we are going to have federal elections in September.

How are they different from the election in UK?

@rand any idea exactly why this happened? Weren't people predicting a landslide for May?

6:10 AM

@Sid Corbyn was too damn good.

And May hid herself away and refused to engage with people.

Overconfidence? That never works out well..

The electoral system is based on two votes: One for your local representative and a second (more mportant) one for a "list", usually a party. For each constituency, there is one MP, usually of one of the bif two parties, but the parliament is filled with people from the list so to the share of overall votes represents the share of seats for each party.

The proportional share is to ensure that small parties are represented. The dirct vote is to ensure that there is at least one representatives from each constituency. There's a third rule, that only lists that receive at least 5% of total votes enter the parliament, which is to ensure that the parliament isn't too fragmented. (The small lists are often quite radical, either left-wing or right-wng.)

Law proposals must pass the federal parliament and the federal council, which is a body made up of representatives from each federal state.

(But enough of this. The ongoings in the UK are certainly miore interesting right now.)

@rand so, in all likelihood, May resigns? Who is the best bet for Prime Minister if Conservatives muster up a majority?

6:26 AM

@Sid Impossible to say at this stage.

23 mins ago, by Rand al'Thor

Also, stay tuned for another round of Tory Backstabbing, the panel game of the century.

^ I'm totally serious

Who knows which of them will come out on top.

The first time round, Theresa May as PM was a bit of a surprise, too, if I recall correctly.

Wow.. So, there is no clear-cut leader of the party?

Well, the PM post in Britain is cursed. Cameron resigned after 1 year. May will probably resign after one year as well

@MOehm Yeah. First Cameron got stabbed in the back by Johnson, then Johnson got stabbed in the back by Gove, then Gove got stabbed in the back by (... ? I think there was another stage in there too) May only ended up on top because her sole opponent unexpectedly dropped out once it was a two-horse race.

That's probably part of why she wanted this election: she'd never really been elected in any sense, not as PM and not even properly as leader of her party.

@Sid Cameron had already had 4 years as PM before that 1 year.

0

Q: How I see things in real

I just wanted to show you how I see my puzzle in real, because I can't see hidden message (Except that weird "I"). In fact - I don't know what you see in picture, but I see Red Panda. Do you see it too? Hint 0:

steganography

Yes, I remember that the newspaper compared the process to a famous ice-skating race where a mediocre Austrailan won, because everyone else was either involved in mass crashes or was disqualified.

Alconja

6:38 AM

@MOehm You mean "pulling a Bradbury".

@Alconja Yes, exactly. The story was probably just retold to us by the UK correspondent.

So, basically this was a referendum on the governance of Mrs. May?

And people didn't like it?

Mithrandir

The political discussions are everywhere. I can't get away from them...

@Sid Eh, it's more complicated than that.

But it was very much a two-way fight between May and Corbyn.

With a lot of EU issues thrown into the mix.

ffao

Bradbury's strategy from the semi-final onwards was to cruise behind his opponents and hope that they crashed

you mean that was his actual plan?

6:51 AM

What happens when nobody wins the election?

Mithrandir

Then Politics goes crazy.

7:03 AM

@Mithrandir Well, propose another topic, then.