The Sphinx's Lair

Oh

Ohhhhhh

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

boboquack

I speak for someone who lives in Tasmania - it's a very nice place

>:D I know where you live now

10:08 AM

Only slightly embarrassed that wasn't immediately obvious. Only slightly.

(it almost hurts that I see that as SAITAMA + N instead :P)

reads

How can I not think of a hero starting with N

This is like the ultimate disgrace

Far out, again that was gettable by me

boboquack

@ASCII-only don't get 'for' and 'as' confused! oh wait - that gives more info as to where I live :P

Yep, I know people who tell everyone Tasmania's wonderful

I know the TV says "Do the NT"

and nothing about any other state/territory

10:16 AM

While we're here: reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutTasmania

Does anybody program in pascal?

boboquack

@ASCII-only 'Discover Tasmania'!

Ooh, I found this wonderful puzzle today. It was a M. Escher 3x3 cube puzzle

@Wen1now Obviously nobody in the world uses Pascal :P

^Example of what it looked like

10:45 AM

Do we have a 4c

The last one is alive, IIUC

40 mins ago, by ffao

@MOehm TASMANIA

@ffao owes one

Or put another way, it's ffao's turn.

Hmm, does this count as an indirect anagram?

Nah, all letters were present in the clue

10:50 AM

hey @Morgan, wanna try Spyfall?

Oh.. Everyone was introducing themselves and I missed it

Just do it now, nobody will notice

Lol.

Devil's home,=TASMANIA?

Yeah, Tasmania's a big exporter of apples, and apples are the sinner's fruit, hence how it got that nickname

I can't tell if you're being serious

11:06 AM

Of course not :P

Half :P Actual answer is of course the Tasmanian Devil, but Tassie is (or at least was) an exporter of apples (one of its nicknames is "The Apple Isle")

Tasmania is named after Tasman (idk his first name)

Abel? I think

Been too long

Pfft. Anyway, 'apples are the sinner's fruit' is on the wikipedia myths page

yeah

The Tasman Sea to the north of Tassie is also named after him

11:08 AM

Ah, right. The Tasmanian Devil is a thing. My best guess before that was because Tasmania is in the land Down Under.

And then there's also New South Wales and Queen (Victoria's) Land which are also named after people

I thought it was because it was "Van Dieman's land"

@Wen1now *Diemens' :P

meh. Same thing

And basically all the capital cities are named after lords

11:09 AM

@Wen1now why did people believe that? I mean, how did that get propagated?

(Disclaimer: if I make a Bible reference, I'm probably wrong since I know none of it :P)

It explains that as well. The serpent scene was mostly depicted with an apple in artwork, so BAM we have a sterotype

Serpent scene?

In a CC, if we have something like 'headless' does that mean exactly the first letter removed, or could it be more than just one letter?

@Sp3000 It's worth investigating.

11:14 AM

Serpent scene, poisoned fruit scene, doom to all humankind scene; it goes by many names

poisoned fruit scene?

It sorta makes sense in retrospect, but only sorta

I literally make these names up on the spot

Even the first one?

0

Q: Is there a stain or not?

On a dry and fine evening just after sunset, you have gone for buying a new shirt from a show room alongwith your friend down a lane. Lights are on in the streets and in the shops as well. Due to some reason, your friend took few quick strides forward and he was ahead of you by 10 - 15 feet at w...

@ffao Yes, of course. (I thought just making this an anagram of "I am Satan" would have been too obvious.)

11:19 AM

I don't understand anything of what you are saying

Of wen, that is.

Err, have you read the Bible?

the Creation story?

@Wen1now To answer this - usually and preferably the first is what I'd say

Okay. Makes sense, sometimes

Sorry, I'm delirious. Ignore the 'sometimes' I decided for some reason to stick on the end

as4s4hetic

when I was a kid I read the bible for fun

11:40 AM

@as4s4hetic O_o

as4s4hetic

ok so I went to this super tiny and super catholic school for preschool

and... that's all they made us read

ffao

CCCC: Indian and the French are creeps (6)

I'm really sleepy but this should be confirmable without me

12:00 PM

@Wen1now Nope.

Fall of man

The fall of man, or the fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. Although not named in the Bible, the doctrine of the fall comes from a biblical interpretation of Genesis chapter 3. At first, Adam and Eve lived with God in the Garden of Eden, but the serpent tempted them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden. After doing so, they became ashamed of their nakedness and God expelled them from the Garden to prevent them from...

(???les hmmmm)

Heh

SID+LES

:)

(Creeps as in verb)

12:04 PM

Heh

(I was thinking "inches" at first but "ches" doesn't really work :P)

@Wen1now I have this vague feeling of having heard that story before...

Anyway, @Sp3000 you are up..

Huh? Why me?

You got LES. I got the word only after that...

I only posted ???les because I didn't have it :P

(seemed like a sane parsing for a def ending in S)

I only got it because you posted ???LES. :P

12:08 PM

Eh, well the hope was that it'd help someone get it, and it did, so go on :P

....duh.

12:35 PM

Here's an easy one. You will get it pretty soon...

CCCC: Dealer puzzled Morgen (6)

(MORGEN)* = MONGER?

Yeah

Morgen? Is that a name?

Nothing wrong with easy :P

@MOehm it means tomorrow or something in I think german

12:37 PM

@MOehm I found that out when I was lazily going through German words. Apparently it is German for Morning

It is indeed, but I didn't expect a German word there.

(Both of you are correct: It can mean morning as well as tomorrow.)

I wanted to do German morning, there. But, indirect anagrams...

figured that would be better for contact. :P

Oehm's so proud of you ~~submitting to~~ learning his language

A breath of fresh air after all those "artificial" languages such as Esperanto and Lojban we had earlier ...

@n_palum Nah, I am not learning the language. I only know that because my cousin was learning the language and I had known that from her. :P

12:41 PM

CCCC: A Galaxy Note possibly left earlier for tech conglomerate (8)

To be fair, they were discussing natural languages earlier as well :P

Apep

hmm... explosive is 9

Yes. I hadn't really folowed that discussion, although the chat window was open.

Hmm... Universe is 8. And verse=note is somewhat plausible...

But, that's the end of my hypothesis

So it's Unilever? Universe - verse + L + ever? Nah, that's not right. (They're not really a tech conglomerate and the "left" is doing double duty.)

Yeah Unilever's not tech :P (and Galaxy <-> universe seems a tad loose)

12:54 PM

(Milky way is 8, if that helps)

I just used the scraps that Sid had fed me. :)

but if you are in a bad mood, you will argue that it is 5,3 and not 8

Apep

tech conglomerate could be alphabet

I?

because i-phones=Apple+tech Conglomerate?

@Sp3000 But it's ALPHABET (the Google holding corp.) = A + LPHABET (phablet = mixture of phone and tablet with the "L earlier")

(And just for the record -- I had it before Apep proposed it. I'm just slow at typing.)

12:57 PM

Yup that's the one

can "of" be used to indicate reverse concatenation as in "right of center" = "CR"?

CCCC: Dark empty space, cold for November (5)

@JohnDvorak How do you want this to work exactly?

city centre = centre of city

Yes, but how do you get CR from "right of center"?

right = R, center = C

(def of foo) of (def of bar) => barfoo

1:07 PM

Oh, I see what you mean. Because you can often say "A of B" instead of "B A", you want to use "of" as reversal indicator. I don't think that's kosher, because you can't always do that: East od Eden ≠ Eden East; First of all ≠ all first and so on.

gotcha, thanks

1:32 PM

Gah, I am blanking on this C4. Apart from(possibly) Empty Space=SE, I have nothing.

There's probably a C->N sub

I mean N->C

BLA{N->C}K

Oh. Empty space=Blank..

nice

CCCC: Insect protecting last bits of red hot chili from 11 p.m. maybe (7)

"Gah, I am blanking on this C4" -- Funny that you should say that. :) @Sp3000 is correct, of course.

1:44 PM

Heh, irony.

:P

I like empty space = SE

I'm sure M Oehm purposely put in "empty space" knowing what Sid would get stuck trying :P

(especially when he told me yesterday about empty, outskirts and stuff...)

No, I had that in my bank for longer. I remember we discussed the "empty" device yesterday or so?

But I may have been thinking about the double cryptic meaning when I wrote it.

2:14 PM

@Sp3000 It's BEDTIME (well, not yet, but at 11 pm) = BEE around last letters of [re]D [ho]T [chil]I [fro]M

And indeed, it's about to be for me :)

(not too happy with the "from", but oh well)

Why not? It belongs to the fodder and doesn't beliong to the def.

11 PM is not Bedtime. :P

Should be more like 1 AM or 3 AM.

CCCC: Shanti! Nereids dance, no time to get up early! (4, 3, 5)

It works for wordplay, it would have just been nicer if the whole _D _T _I _M was one phrase :P

2:17 PM

@Sid You obviously don't work or you'd say different lol

Obviously.

@Sid So you don't even go to bed before jogging? :>

11pm is when I should be sleeping here. In practice, that never seems to happen :P

4 hours of sleep. 2-6

ShantiNereids = 13 letters, 4+3+5 = 12. Hmmmm

Oh, right.

(RISE AND SHINE)* = (SHANTINEREIDS - T)*

2:21 PM

Yep! I've just learned that a nereid can also be a bristle worm of the ragworm family, so there's an early bird theme hidden there somewhere. (If you stare at it too long, that is.)

I was assuming there's something clever about the fodder but alas I know neither word :P

CCCC: Aromatherapy venue in superior spot? (9)

@Sp3000 Shanti=Peace

Nereids are sea nymphs. When I removed that, I was left with SHANI, which reminded me of Shanti, which I'd come across in an article of Goa recently. That word is most famous for being the last word of The Waste Land.

stacksfiller

BE(SPA)TTER

Yup, and with that I should probably be off :)

2:24 PM

Now here's a word I dodn't know ...

@MOehm Shani is actually Saturn in our language.

stacksfiller

CCCC: Farts are noises a baby makes? (3)

@Sid As in the planet? It's good that removing the T gives a pleasant word. You never know with languages that you don't speak ...

@MOehm God of Saturn, but yes. And no, it's not a pleasant word, around here.

The definition + wordplay seems too long for the enumeration :/

2:35 PM

(It's usually associated with bad luck)

wait, no. Not God of Saturn, only the planet saturn.

@JohnDvorak Seems like a ddef to me..

still too long

Oh, bad luck is okay for polite conversation. I thought of outright insults or nasty words. (You've probably heard all the stories that this or that product has a name with means something offensive in this or that language.)

Heh, no. Not bad luck in conversations, it is somehow related to astrology. But, I confess I have no idea how it turns out to be bad luck..

@stacksfiller GAS/ 'GA'S

stacksfiller

yea

2:54 PM

CCCC: Dance around foggy dream? Homecoming. (9)

SPIDERMAN?

Spin around (dream)*

yeah

Sling us a web, you're the Spider-Man / Sling us a web tonight / 'Cause we're all in the mood for a hero now / And there's evil doers to fight

2

3:13 PM

0

Q: Common among the uncommon

What is common among the seemingly uncommmon among the following: One of the types of human blood groups Grading representation in schools Part of alternate representation for Like/ up vote Mother of all numerical operations, well, considered in a way That type of growth usually goes up and rig...

trivia

(Does anyone have a C4 ready? I am a tad busy at the moment to make one soon..

Aug 18 at 15:15, by Rubio

but I don't thinky̅ou quiṫe̔ unde̷rs͢tand wha̶̹͇̪̣̪̤t you asḱ...the ch͐͌̈͑a̾̽̇̈̈́in mͣ̄̏̚uͭͦͭ͋͒ͬs͆ͭt noť̵͎ͧͣ̋̀̚ b̼̭̯̜̘̓ͤ͂ͫe͇̦͉̼͈̯̪̝ͪ̒ͪ̔ͮ ḇ̹̘͇̼̅ͦ͛ͩ̅͆̄ͥr̞̙͍̫̠̖̲ͣo̮̮̼̱̭͇̦͑̎̆̆͂k̞͖̹̗͖͔͖͑̐͒ẽ̬̘̦̻̪͓̙̤̐ͣn̫̤̻͖͌ͦ̇̈̈́͛ͮ̍ — l̳̹͈̖ͭ͒e͔̠͇̱̹̾̒̌͛̿ͣ̅͂s̫̱̰͈̳̒̾ͅt͎ͥ͌ ͔̭̦͙̮͓̟̲̓̾͛͛̎t̺̘͔̦̜̱͚̀̈ͮͬͭh̰̗̗̣̟̺̹̪̓̀̍̌͊͗̄͑̚ė̮͗ͦ̆̒̅̚ eldŕ̫͕̩͎̳̭̝̳̂̀̔͂͑͂̍î̪͎͇ͤͦͭ̒̒tc͈̱̦̟̏̊̂͗̽͊̎͌ḣ̟̜̬̰̬̬̳̽̅͊ ̖̯͎̣͊̈̃͂̈͑͑̅ä̫̹̠́͑b͚̝̘̿̓o̰̲̱̭͉̭̐̂ͪm̫̟͇̰̼̖͍ͩ̉ͣ͆inȃ͇͔̆͊̒͒ͤṫ̻̙͕͔͎̙̠ͬ̓͌̎ͥ̿͛ͫi̔͆́ͤͯ‌͔̘̺̤͚̫̇͑͒̈ͅo̠̮͍͍̳̱̿̓̑ͅn͚̩̰̖̩̠̆ͪ̍͑ͮͅs c͌̈́͒̍͛o̐ͭ̽̍̆m̿̎̈͌̄ͦ̈́e͌

Disrupting the CCCC continuity will shatter the universe

All CCCC answers must be submitted with the understanding of this responsibility

Sigh

CCCC: Weird Euler oddly in drain (8)

3:29 PM

Wow, you folks tend to star some wacky messages that have nothing to do with puzzles

Legless disappointed user starts to gain headway towards moan (4)

0

Q: Help I'm puzzled

My dad was fixing the driveway and later asked me to see if I could get some help with this I'd appreciate your help MIKEY G

jigsaw-puzzle

huh.

@Sid Euler oddly (ELR) "in" drain (DITCH) for ELDRITCH ?

Yes.

I'm not sure that's proper.

3:36 PM

Why is that not proper?

because EL is not inside Ditch?

Yeah

Insertions are contiguous, and yours isn't even a proper insertion

duh.

CCCC: Grieving cripple, thinking selflessly? (11)

I love the surface

3:49 PM

LAMENTATION

LAME + (ME)NTATION

:)

and yes, lovely surface

Beastly Gerbil

I like the use of selflessly there...

4:14 PM

CCCC: Spawn of eldritch abomination? Time to go north (8)

Also great surface

But Gareth winter is coming

I thought winter was associated with southward migration

@MikeQ in the northern hemisphere, sure

This is weird...

4:22 PM

Hm?

If I simply replace T(Time) with N(North), you have CHILDREN, which is Spawn.

What does abomination do there?

Oh, that has to be it! "Abomination" is an anagram indicator.

eldri(t->n)ch -> childre(t->n)

so... not Shoggoth?

Oh, yes. Of course, I anagrammed that..

4:25 PM

Shoggoths aren't spawn, right? I thought they were artificial.

@Gareth I am right, I guess?

Yup, CHILDREN is correct.

That has to be right.

Yeah.

A bit too easy, but I wanted to get "eldritch abomination" in because of the earlier discussion and my next-best attempt was easier still.

incidentally it's not quite T -> N but "time to go" (i.e., remove T) and then appending N for north.

Yeah, T->N is easier to write than "remove T and add N". :P

4:30 PM

It's perfectly possible to make a clue that explicitly does T->N, of course. "Time for knight in eldritch horror to make babies (8)" or whatever.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure whether it's Sid or Deusovi or Mike who's up next...

I think Sid.

If he was actually aware that he was taking an anagram :-).

Yeah, I was unaware that I was doing an anagram.

Someone take the next one...

Oh. I guess I'll take it, then.

CCCC: Trounced an opponent - an accomplishment indeed! (8)

shouldn't be too hard

DEFEATED

4:39 PM

yup

(FEAT in DEED)

hah

I'm sure at least one of us has used the INDEED trick before in a C4...

I don't remember it being used here.

Yep.

And I am sure it has been done multiple times

4:41 PM

Just checked. You've used it once, and you additionally anagrammed DEED.

It was for DE(CREPITU*)DE*.

anyway, damn, I have to make another one now

That ^

the eldritch abominations are rather insistent.

smiles. Then his smile also smiles.

*backs away . . . slowly . . . . *

4:55 PM

CCCC: Accompaniment in A# -- a new improvisation (8,4)

I am thinking this has something to do with anagramming improvisation after removing the "a"

Bb is a hard key to improvise in for me

(Also, what is A#?)

@Sid Musical key. Or it's supposed to seem like a musical key due to Gareth's extensive knowledge of classical music.

Oh dear. Music...again.

5:04 PM

A# is A sharp, which is (in equal temperament) the same as Bb :-). But if you were writing music that modulated sharp-wards far enough, you might prefer to end up in A# with far too many sharps rather than re-notating in Bb.

I make no remark, of course, on how much of that is actually relevant to the clue.

(of course)

tl;dr A sharp = B flat

(I don't even know what is Sharp and what is flat...)

Realistically you'd be rather unlikely to write anything in A#. It would be a key signature with, er, 10 sharps.

I'd be rather unlikely to write any music because I'm not a composer

5:06 PM

When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."

ouch

[rimshot in C minor]

C minor seems more appropriate, yes.

5:18 PM

(AFK for a bit now; my apologies if someone solves the clue while I'm gone)

pity, I was totally just about to get it. *cough*

5:37 PM

The egg deity is here!

sigh

:P

Is Deus an egg deity?

:D

@n_palum yes

:O

5:38 PM

Deus = god and ovi = eggs

In Latin

that's the wrong plural

Spectacular

well ovi ~~ eggs

it's a prefix, but not a word on its own

ova/ovum is actually eggs

5:39 PM

What would be the possessive?

Doesn't matter. You are still the God of Eggs. :P

in any case, it's completely unintended

:/

and completely amusing.

but I'm sure completely annoying.

^ Rub I/O

yeah, kinda annoying

5:40 PM

@dcfyj I think that's NSFW

Alright, I'll drop it. wasn't meaning to annoying, I just find it amusing.

@Sconibulus You sir, have a dirty mind

it's been mentioned before, I think

It has

I was just imagining Deus makin' the ultimate omelette with his tripod cat

Not out of his cat.. like his cat's helping XD

@n_palum ...what?

5:42 PM

@n_palum lol, poor kitty

it's been over two months since I even mentioned that cat in here

plum, your memory is scary

\o/

lol, indeed

Jun 23 at 17:38, by Deusovi

her name is Nala, but we sometimes call her Tripod

I think we finally have found the stalker that was chasing Rand a couple months back

n_palum probably has a dossier on all of us

@Rubio Yep. CIA agent, obviously. :P

5:44 PM

@Sid It's been established that np is a spy. Obviously he spies on all of us.

He has zero reason to know all that much about me

@MikeQ lol, true

I don't know much about dc

how do you think he found out I'm a dog?

maybe he's actually named n_salum?

:P
There's a reason I play rogues a lot hehe

5:45 PM

or rather NSA-lum?

2

haven't you found it suspicious yet that he's always the spy in spyfall - and even in codenames?

he's probably the spy in contact too somehow

2

Don't forget zendo

I have given a decent amount of personal information here. It's not too surprising that someone would know a lot about me. What is surprising is that plum seems to recall all these different facts so effortlessly.

He has a notepad for sure

Lol no notepads

5:47 PM

At least he's not recall facts about you that you haven't said

^

I'm not psychotic (entirely)

Actually I think I know more about np than I know about most of yall

How about psychic? (entirely)

psychotic, maybe not. Psychic, definitely.

5:47 PM

Oh, BTW Deus, I know girls with your first name

I am well-hidden. Not as well-hidden as GPR but well-hidden. Plum's memory scares me..

...

You know girls with his first name? I find that rather unusual

Like I know that Mith lives in the Middle ~~East~~ Earth, but that's really it

huh! I've never met any girls with my first name

5:48 PM

@Mithrandir That's odd...

Israeli girls keep taking the boys names.

Like 'Noam'.

I don't remember your name offhand (or rather I'm not sure I'm remembering it accurately) but I could easily pull it up in my e-mail

Q: Recursive questions answers

0

Well, assuming that most of us have heard about those 'difficult to answer' type questions such as Which came first - egg or hen ? Which existed first - seed or tree ? Well, can you think of such type of questions? Here is one -:Try to provide a valid answer for this- When you properly wo...

logical-deduction trivia

names are hard, everyone should just be called Kevin

Gee, another one MCN?

5:49 PM

yeah, my first name is pretty much an open secret around here. I don't explicitly tell everyone, but it's not hard to figure out at all :P

I know more or less where most people are from

@MikeQ Yeah. And they are all too easy.

Or are at, at the moment :P

@Sphinx that definitely seems opinion-based

(cough cough hint hint)

(I would love to see more of stacksfiller's puzzles though. Those are awesome. )

5:50 PM

I know it because he requested access to my Google Doc... That I used my second account for ;)

yup, Stacksfiller's puzzles are consistently amazing

I remembered your cat

And I -do- have to write things down about you folks if I'm to recall them later, but that one I definitely remembered offhand

Maybe because cat

@feelinferrety Ah, so you have a dossier on us. :P

@Sid Like Deus's name, I've made it a sort of open secret at this point

Looks like you can find info about me with fairly minimal effort. oh well lol

5:53 PM

@Mithrandir like I said, open secret. I don't really mind people knowing at all. (there's not much information out there about me besides stuff I've already said here anyway - trust me, I've checked)

But it's still fairly new so I have to do searches for anything specific :P

@feelinferrety yes, that would make sense

@Deusovi I find it more fun to be "open" about false and conflicting information, just to mess with people.

Pretty sure it wouldn't be hard to find myself elsewhere on the net, but I'm confident none of you have ever bothered

Googled your usename: "Did you mean: feeling fruity"

2

5:55 PM

@MikeQ Why yes, I am!

*chomps apple*

Would that constitute cannibalism?

I can think of at least three sites where you could find me, if you knew my previous username.

The Shire, Rivendell, and Hogwarts?

Probably some other name of Gandalf.

I'm curious how much someone could find about me. I know I can find (online and objectively) a fair bit of information on myself pretty easily, but I'm also using local servers, so...