The Sphinx's Lair

3:06 AM

@GarethMcCaughan ADMIN (AD - time + MIN - end; def = running group)?

3:52 AM

I'm not sure how you got either of those bits, and while an ADMIN (as a noun) might run a group, those are different parts of speech - and in the questionable use of ADMIN as a verb, for which I could only find attestation on Wiktionary, it's still a mismatch of tense vs gerund I guess

Having said that, I have no idea at this point what this one is. hehe

Omega Krypton

4:36 AM

running group: group that is in charge of running (an organisation)

AD as opposed to BC

admin and running group are both in the noun sense

but nvm, seems like it's wrong anyway ;)

Rubio

oh. ok yah i guess that sense of AD could be a period of time :)

welp. almost caught up on puzzling again, finally.

mods should get more daily votes. (hehe)

what who what

Omega Krypton

admin

for the c4

Rubio

I'd be very surprised if it was right

Omega Krypton

oh yep, i thought you were the one who posted the c4 lol

thinking that you can check it for me XD

Deusovi

it doesn't use "to put an" or "to", so I'd be very surprised if it was right

Rubio

4:45 AM

heyla deus

Deusovi

hello!

Omega Krypton

hello deus

and rubio

Rubio

I think we're never on at the same time anymore. :)

Deusovi

seems like it! I haven't been on too much in the past week or two though, so that might contribute to it

Rubio

here's how to make a convincingly bad solution to the C4.

RACK is a variant spelling of WRACK, as in "wrack and ruin", the destruction or collapse of something. (also wrack v.tr. to cause the ruin of; wreck)

Time is of course T as it always is

T+RACK = track, a running group

Alconja

5:00 AM

Ok, I better get in on the action here... how about AMASS (def: group, AM=time ASS="to put and end to running", because I'm sitting on it?)

Rubio

lol

I think we can all agree that RUST can put an end to the running of, say, a motor. T+RUST = a group. I can do this all night.

(that one actually has half a prayer of being legit)

Omega Krypton

5:17 AM

lel

M Oehm

No, it's ON ("The machine is running / on") + SET (group) and an archaic meaning of "onset" is assault, i.e. a "time to put an end to".

Rubio

oh see now

Omega Krypton

wow

Rubio

you're not supposed to go and actually solve the thing

weren't you paying attention here

I mean, we all knew that, like it's so obvious

M Oehm

(For what it's worth, I don't think that's the answer, because the definition would be much too loose.)

Rubio

5:22 AM

(hehe, it's actually not a particularly bad attempt to be honest)

Omega Krypton

hmmm... i wonder what @GarethMcCaughan's reaction would be when he/she see this

Rubio

tut tut, you forgot TRUST. :)

Omega Krypton

sorry

oops

possible solutions now: FLEET (rejected), LAPSE (rejected), ADMIN (by me), TRACK (by @Rubio), AMASS (by @Alconja), TRUST (by @Rubio), ONSET (by @MOehm)

4

Q: Not Just Black and White

Answer for this puzzle is one word. Have fun! Highlighted parts are where I realised I have clued it wrong... Sorry for all this inconvenience! Hint: This puzzle is a part of Ooohh, it all makes sense now! :D

anyone wanna solve the remaining part?

Rubio

i fear it's time for me to toddle off for a while

have a lovely, all

M Oehm

Bye.

Omega Krypton

5:33 AM

bye

Sphinx

7:12 AM

0

Q: Chess problem: Make a crossword in 3 moves

A crossword position is a legal chess position with the following property: The board can be thought of as a crossword grid where the pieces on board work as clues. Each type of piece is a clue for their own name (KING, QUEEN, ROOK, BISHOP, KNIGHT or PAWN). That is, you can fill out the empty ...

chess checkerboard

Gareth McCaughan

10:29 AM

All the proposed solutions to my C4 are perfectly correct.

No, wait, not "all". The other one.

None, that's the word I was looking for.

Omega Krypton

10:48 AM

it's either all or none, then which one is it? @GarethMcCaughan

Sphinx

11:33 AM

0

Q: 3D nonogram – What's in the box?

This is a three-dimensional nonogram. The first six squares depict the layers of a $6\times6\times6$ cube. The final square gives the enumerations for the Z-axis, top to bottom. Some rules: The grid has three different colours: Red, blue and orange. The black numbers can refer to stretches of a...

visual grid-deduction nonogram

Sphinx

11:53 AM

0

Q: Explain how 'Sharing the burden' puzzle from Proferssor Layton and the Miracle Mask should be solved

Two porters have to carry six pieces of luggage of unknown weight. Each piece weighs a different amount, and they are labeled in order of weight from A to F, with A being the lightest and F the heaviest. Each piece weighs up to 10 lbs., and the total weight is 40 lbs. or less. Each porter can ca...

logical-deduction

Sphinx

12:13 PM

0

Q: Approximate this big number using a binomial

Mr. Magico is a greater believer in this number: $$2^{50}=1,125,899,906,842,624‬$$ He also like to play cards, although he isn't fussy about the size of his deck, and nor does he care how many cards he pulls. He wishes to find $n,k$ such that: $$\binom{n}{k}\approx 2^{50}$$ and wants...

combinatorics optimization cards

Gareth McCaughan

12:47 PM

Having answered this question ^, I am wondering guiltily whether instead I should have closed it as not-really-a-puzzle. I don't think I will because it is at least a bit puzzly, but those who feel strongly about such things may wish to take a look and decide whether it's more maths problem than puzzle.

Sphinx

0

Q: Grandpa's 4 letter sentence

"I just built a sentence!" said Grandpa with a curious smile. " What is so great about that?" I complained "I only used four alphabets". "No way anyone can guess that" I said "Here is a hint. My sentence has 8 words, three or less vowels and a famous city". Can you guess? May...

knowledge wordplay english

Rubio

1:03 PM

@GarethMcCaughan the only puzzlish aspect is I suppose in devising the strategy for getting a result and making that strategy one that can be followed with enough efficiency to be completable before the heat death of the universe (or, at least, before someone else beats you to it). But that question there seems entirely too straightforward for that to be all that much of a challenge ...

I think “follow an obvious strategy in a particular search domain to find the best answer possible” is too mechanical a thing to be a puzzle.

(I’ve had that concern about none too few of Uvc’s posts, particularly the earlier ones. They’ve gotten more puzzlish since, so that’s something anyway)

Deusovi

I agree that that's not really a puzzle in any meaningful way. There's not really a path to the best answer besides just brute-force computer search.

I also think the 4-letter sentence question should be closed as too broad -- thoughts on that? (If general opinion is "no", I can post my four answers, and maybe that'll change your mind. :P )

M Oehm

1:23 PM

Yes, that one looks way to broad to me, too. Perhaps the trick is to find the famous city and then make words from its letters, but without any further direction, that's not really a puzzle. (And the city might well be just NY or LA.)

Gareth McCaughan

Yes, Uvc has improved substantially.

I'm not so sure about the 4-letter sentence one. As you've probably noticed, I have a (courteous but) fundamental disagreement with Deusovi about whether something can rightly be called a puzzle when it has multiple solutions. I think that if finding any solution is difficult in the right sort of way, then "find a solution" is almost as good a puzzle as "find the solution" would be if there were exactly one.

I'm very willing to believe that Deusovi has four decent solutions. None the less, I think finding any that meet the constraints is at least a little bit tricky.

Deusovi

1:43 PM

It's not just the broadness that bothers me, but also the fact that it's inherently subjective what counts as an English sentence (or even an English word, for that matter).

(And in fact, I did end up closing it as opinion-based instead.)

Gareth McCaughan

(I haven't given much thought to that puzzle, and in particular haven't found a solution myself, though I did find that ιηπ makes a fairly creditable 6-word sentence ("I ought to eat a pie") which is kinda cute.)

Yeah, opinion-based is probably a better criticism.

Deusovi

Oh, I think you're misinterpreting -- it seemed to me that "four letters" meant "four distinct letters", not four letters total.

Gareth McCaughan

Oh! I definitely thought it meant four in total.

If it means only four distinct letters then my estimation of its difficulty and interest goes way down.

Deusovi

Yeah, I'd be much more hesitant to close it if it was four letters total -- getting eight words at all seems difficult.

M Oehm

Oh, so that's how iota is pronounced in English.

Deusovi

1:48 PM

(Though I probably still would think it's closeworthy -- it would be even more subjective, because in addition to the question of "what counts as an English word or sentence?", you also have the problem of "what counts as being formed by the given letters?".)

I've always pronounced it roughly /ai.ou.də/, not /ai.a.də/.

Might be an American vs British thing.

M Oehm

My surprise was that it starts with the diphtong /ai/, not with a atrsight /i/ or /ee/.

(Pronunciation of English is not my forte and "iota" isn't a word I use too often in speech.)

Deusovi

For what it's worth, I don't think pronunciation of English is anyone's forte.

Omega Krypton

@Deusovi agreed

Gareth McCaughan

2:20 PM

"Iota" is not really pronounced much like "I oughtta" :-).

I usually pronounce it pretty much like the first pronunciation Deusovi gives, and I pronounce the first vowel of "ought" as /ɔː/ rather than as /a/.

I suspect actual Greek people probably pronounce the first sound in "iota" more like /iː/ or /i/.

OED says pronunciation of "iota" is: Brit. /ʌɪˈəʊtə/, U.S. /aɪˈoʊdə/. My actual pronunciation of the word is pretty much the British one there.

Puzzling Meta

0

Q: Is there a way to generate interest in old questions?

I'm new to Puzzling Stack Exchange and have found I can learn a lot by reading old puzzles and seeing how they were solved. I took an interest in one and posted an answer which was different to the previous answers but of course everyone finished debating it over a year ago. Is there a way to re-...

support answers

Sphinx

3:14 PM

-1

Q: Making a room escape possible

How can one smart person get rid of two foolish people if both parties are in the same room, how can the smart escape the room? I seamlessly can think about a good way. What are the possible ways? What are the most efficient ways? What way is the least efficient but effective?

logical-deduction

Sphinx

4:14 PM

0

Q: Mighty Knight Makes only Minimal Moves

Mighty Knight(regular chess moves only) is trapped in corner cell H1. What are the minimum number of moves needed for the Knight to visit the X marked cells?

no-computers chess

M Oehm

5:16 PM

@GarethMcCaughan Thanks for the detailed explanation. :) I think your pronunciation of ought (which rhymes with thought, no?) is the one I learned at school and that I use too, more or less. (And no, I didn't think that the "oughtta" part of your "Greek" sentence was an exact phonetic match.)

My problem is, of course, that I read a lot of English, but I don't speak enough. And when I speak I often speak to other non-native speakers of English. But I could correct some of my errors with the help of homophone clues or poetry, where my wrong pronunciation didn't work or broke the rhyme or meter.

(When I say poetry, I mean Limericks rather than sonnets, I'm afraid ...)

jafe

5:41 PM

sonnets might even be counterproductive if you're reading the ones from back when "gone" rhymed with "own" :)

SeaMonkey

Hi, I'm new to Puzzling Stack Exchange and am looking to learn. I'm hoping someone here could take a look at my answer on an old question and pick it apart for me? The question ishttps://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/45664/are-there-eighteen-or-twenty-bars-in-my-castle

John Dvorak

Which side do you want your answer reviewed from?

SeaMonkey

Sorry, what do you mean by that?

Deusovi

6:13 PM

I haven't looked into it in too much detail yet, but it seems like you're assuming "B knows that A knows that B knows fact X" means it's common knowledge. But that's not true -- nested hypotheticals don't work that way. (This is the same problem people have with the Blue Eyes problem when they ask "why can't everyone just start later, since everyone knows that there are at least n-2 people with blue eyes?".)

Sphinx

0

Q: What order should I learn CFOP in?

I have been solving the 3x3 using the beginners method for about 2 and a half months and I was wondering what order I should learn CFOP in. I was thinking of learning advanced f2l first and then oll and pll but I have only learnt a few algs. Should I just learn intuitive f2l first and then do oll...

rubiks-cube twisty-puzzles

Gareth McCaughan

yes, "ought" and "thought" rhyme (for me, and I guess pretty much every speaker of any dialect of English)

SeaMonkey

6:35 PM

@Deusovi Thanks Deusovi. Can you recommend somewhere I can look for more information on this (aimed at beginners like me who don't know anything about game theory?). I found this puzzle fascinating.

Deusovi

There are a bunch of great explanations of the Blue Eyes problem here: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/236/… (though you might want to try out the puzzle for yourself first)! I'm not sure if there are any other resources -- this isn't really game theory, because there aren't different 'payouts' and the players aren't really competing in any way.

SeaMonkey

7:03 PM

@Deusovi Thanks, this looks really interesting :-) I'll try and get my head round it.

Sphinx

7:16 PM

0

Q: The missing number in a sequence

What is the missing number represented as "?" 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,20,22,24, ?,100,121,10000

number-sequence

1

Q: Three is company, Four is a crowd

What are the Missing ones? $S$ $R$ $?$ $T$ $?$

lateral-thinking

Sphinx

8:17 PM

0

Q: Use digits 3 3 5 to make 67 or 97

Rules: all 3 digits 3,3,5 must be used once in any order. You can make multi-digit number, e.g. 33. you can use factorial n!, subfactorial !n and double factorial n!!, e.g. 3!=6, !5=44, (3!)!!=48. However multi factorial n!!!.. should not be used. +,-,*,/,(),^ can be used for functions. not ...

formation-of-numbers

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