The Sphinx's Lair

5:28 PM

^ dup puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/52498/…

yup

yeah

and agree with @rubio seems like some hwk

and indeed OP just confirmed

Nice. Meh.

:/

the dupe and homeworkiness were why I didn't answer

pretty trivial as well, i'm surprised it had to be asked on here

5:30 PM

people are lazy

I didn't see it until just now alas

The one from yesterday had a not-so-obvious name maybe but still

if I had known it was a dupe I wouldn't have answered, but wasn't really active yesterday so missed it

and anyway just searching online gives the answer

The OP could have tried to look

meh. It gets me another 25 rep away from you :P

bah. Until I delete it as a dup. :)

5:33 PM

should we delete dupes?

(Not usually, unless they are deleteworthy otherwise)

But do flag it for closure.

Ones of you should just close it

I would have but hammer

ditto

its a clear dupe, and if it is then surely the community will allow a hammer?

5:35 PM

that's what I thought

Though to be honest, merging is probably fitting here

until dan russel

but then people made a meta post about it, saying I was out of control

I'm against the idea of a mod closing something if there is some uncertainty, but if not I'm all for a quick closure

Two essentially identical questions in two days with essentially identical answers feels like merge territory.

5:36 PM

Go ahead and merge then.

Wait since when can you merge questions?

Never seen that before?

It's not usually necessary.

so its a usually not very useful mod tool?

Yeah. questions often have enough differences in their content or in the answers they get to make it not a good thing to do

This one seems spot on though. Lemme get off mobile and will merge

oh, I can - no need for you to get off mobile

5:38 PM

But ... toys

lol

oh cool so all answers just migrate

annnnd I'm off mobile. :)

aw you did it hehe

welp. Thanks deus.

As long as you're solving problems

can you, um, solve this C4? hehe

And now someones going to complain about deus on meta :P

hm, I should update it to make it easier

@BeastlyGerbil I'm on it. ;)

"Deusovi took a mod action without waiting! (for me to do it first) He's out of control!"

5:42 PM

hint 1: the word "seen" is part of an indicator, but the clue would work fine without it

I'm kinding of half expecting someone from another community to ask why rubio hasn't banned rubio yet considering it was one of his election promises

@BeastlyGerbil Technically I only said I was running on the "Ban Rubio" platform, I never said I would actually take that action myself. :)

:P

Sphinx

0

Q: A binary sequence puzzle

This is a binary puzzle, the size of the next binary number is 1 bit more than the previous one. So what could be the next number in the sequence. If this is really tough then I'm not asking for an answer but just wanna know how do we even begin solving these kind of puzzles. Are there any strat...

number-sequence sequence

6:10 PM

boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/35560/… hehe

lol

Jan Dvorak

reopened on crypto.se

I'll be honest. I don't follow the math in the answer.

I recognize some of the groups of symbols as words

Jan Dvorak

Anyone up for a game?

Kritixi Lithos

yes

6:28 PM

Good Evening Folks!

allo

I will leave Rubio's puzzle to the other guys here. (Read: I have no idea what to do. Eventually, someone will figure it out)

Kritixi Lithos

what is Rubio's puzzle?

@Rubio I am interested to know the inspiration behind that puzzle.

Q: ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE REPORT 1706

14

I found this in my Inbox today. I think someone is playing a prank, but ... well ... I'm really not sure! Puzzling friends, can you please take a look and see if you can tell what's up with this message? Date : 08-JUN-2017 Dossier : RAND AL'THOR Subject : ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE REPO...

word enigmatic-puzzle

I may do a wrap-up on that one because I don't really want to talk about how it came together before it's solved.

I'll say that as much fun and entertainment as people are getting from reading it, I had probably just as much fun and entertainment ~~writing it~~ receiving it in my Inbox :)

6:42 PM

Yes yes, of course. No need to spoil anything now. Just make sure, you do a write-up. I am genuinely interested to know.

@rubio helpfulness level 0 is more helpful than level 4 :P

(That's actually both true and not true. Hehe)

and that is just helpfulness level -1000

6:59 PM

Is there something called as pure enigmatic puzzle?

Where the enigmatic-puzzle tag isn't for hiding other tags.

manshu

the enigmatic-puzzle tag isn't for hiding other tags.

It is something where the solver isn't given any clue about how to solve it.

^

^ it can be (and sometimes is used to stand in for one or more tags while a puzzle is being solved) where having that information would in fact be a clue for how to solve it

or occasionally when any other tag gives tmi

but yeah, there are definitely puzzles where "Enigmatic" really means "There's a method to this madness, but I'm not telling you what", and where it's not just a way of hiding some particular tag from you.

7:04 PM

basically enigmatic-puzzle applies to any alconja puzzle, put it that way

4

manshu

^

alconja-puzzle would be a nice tag

that would be merged to be a synonym of enigmatic :P

or maybe the other way round...

manshu

I'll vote for the latter. :p

BREAKING NEWS: All posts tagged 'enigmatic' are now being changed to become 'alconja' puzzles, as that is clearly a better definition

above comment tagged alconja-puzzle, a.k.a its really hard to solve

Here's a few of my own puzzles with enigmatic not hiding tags

and yeah. Alconja's are pretty much the poster children for the tag :)

7:17 PM

that first puzzle made e hate igur so much :P

ffao

Now that hint 4 has strengthened my suspicions, I think the reason I might have a leg up is because I solved a puzzle in which every paragraph pointed to a letter before: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/52013/…

ah, that makes word -> letter make more sense

7:30 PM

phew. just finished a really intricate stego puzzle, tons of layers in a short block of text. Took ages to get it right

10:09 PM

dead Puzzling is dead

?

it's so quiet today :)

ffao

10:23 PM

I'm still repcapped from the 29-1 thing

HNQ is insane

yyyup

Here's a nudge . . .

Spoiler alert: The world needs more weasels.

Hint: Skunks are weasels.

Conundrum: What to do when two skunks seem intent on populating us with little stinkers?

... For a minute I marveled at how delicately they went about it.

In another minute I thought of how to avert destiny.

Then four days to understand the futility of that dilemma.

Wow, you can make anything sound poetic.

I've always wondered if a dilemma is a math proposition with two key elements.

"Two horns" to be literal

10:29 PM

Thinks that make you go @humn.

... that story actually began as in intro to telling about a gang fight ... both stories are true but the skunky one came out nicer ...

Another skunk story doesn't have a puzzling hook. It began with a slanted trail of 5 skunks.

The last little one took one step after another and wound up a tree just by following a geodesic.

The lead skunk heard pings of confusion but couldn't see the far side of the tree trunk.

I swear that leader counted the ground forces. Humans are not the only who can count.

This time I didn't jump but did enjoy seeing how things work out sometimes.

Lots of skunks around these parts . . . perhaps just enough

... unless someone intervenes, a surprisingly boring gang fight story will fill the pixelwaves ...

Gangs are like skunks!

One day you're trying to stop them from reproducing, the next you're soaking in them.

Day after that you're in mud puddle just to spare someone else that indignity.

"My" former gang was out to humiliate someone new.

When it goes "well," that someone new earns a scar like an insignia.

I knew this someone from elsewhere and didn't think they'd do quite so well.

I also had years of guilt to rid, so off to the rescue!

Quite an experience to re-fight those who taught me to fight.

When i'm done losing my hair the scars will tell their own stories.

Now i cuddle with skunks.

11:25 PM

(And, even better than weasels, hominids who are not out to humiliate others! Never too late to learn.)

11:35 PM

... perhaps this should go to Literature SE (I've given up on English SE) ... I have learned more English from someone who entered USA without as much as an anglicized adjective.

... than from those born to the manner (pun intended)

I am quite curious what it would be like to spend a day in @humn's shoes.

Would they be comfortable? Would they be sandals, or high-tops, or patent leather perhaps

You have built a landscape for them shoes to wander.

(Them shoes are skin. Thick enough on occasion.)

That was another choice, but I wasn't sure how I'd spend the day in your soles. And I'm sure that would not be comfortable for either of us.

Then again they might be moccasins, in which case my concern for you would be misplaced

@Rubio , One at a time! (couldn't resist)

but, perhaps, replaced by concern for slithery hydrophiliacs.

11:41 PM

I phile.

@humn ah. That might make me more unbalanced than I already am. You too, though that hardly seems possible!

Without solutions. (late entry)

I have fallen off my unbalanced chair so many times, thanks to you Rubio!

Hello ~~world~~ ground.

Sphinx

0

Q: Five Letter Cryptex Code

Today I gave my three-year-old brother the five letter password to my cryptex and let him play around with it while I was in the other room. By the time I returned, he had managed to take apart the cryptex, change the password, and scramble it again. He couldn't remember the password, but luckily...

logical-deduction