The Sphinx's Lair

12:11 AM

0

Starting with this question, I shall give hints on specific timing. After 24 hours since posting the question, I give a subtle hint. After other 12 hours, I give a moderate hint. After other 6 hours, I give a decisive hint. For each inaccurate answers, my (abstract) timer resets. Is this a go...

Alconja

1:16 AM

Ok, legitimate attempt (though a clear explanation is challenging...):
Not end ends not end, not end ends end
[[Not end] ends] [[not end], [not [end ends]]]: end
[[(no)T] comes after] [[DEBUT], [minus [E(n)D]]]: end
[T after] [(-de)BUT]: BUTT

Omega Krypton

wow! nice!

maybe you can say (-e_-d_)BUT+_T

Avi

If this is true, PiIsNot3 is a mad genius

emphasis on mad

Sphinx

1:39 AM

1

Q: What does this translate to

Translates to: "[speaking to you] Welcome. This puzzle is one [or 'the first'] of many puzzles that you will solve [or 'that will be solved by you']. I will not give you the solution to this puzzle; (or ',') you will have to work with others to solve it. [end of section]" A few notes (which I...

language

PiIsNot3

2:03 AM

@Alconja Yes, that’s correct! And a perfect explanation as well

@Avi Thanks, I try my best :)

Alconja

Ok, here's a stupid one, for which I make absolutely no apologies to the room's resident sticklers:

CCCC: Confused, arrange, sort, illicit, sad, and anomaly?! (7,10,3,9,2)

PiIsNot3

@Alconja I can’t confirm this, but I have a feeling this starts with ANAGRAM INDICATORS

Omega Krypton

2:19 AM

I dont know the phrase, but I think it's an &lit, *(arrange, sort, illicit, sad, and anomaly)

Alconja

I can neither confirm nor deny either of those observations.

Omega Krypton

im pretty sure, given the letter count and the ! mark

bombarding an internet anagram server atm

31 letters = long...

PiIsNot3

@Alconja It’s ANAGRAM INDICATORS AND LITERALLY SO

And the answer phrase indicates what the clue is all about :)

Alconja

@PiIsNot3 That it is. :D

Omega Krypton

2:38 AM

oh. dammit. nice one!

eh?

Alconja

Just an idiot mashing keyboards in wrong window. Nothing of interest of value. :)

Omega Krypton

1. do not insult me by saying that you are an idiot.

6

Q: Landscapes and Symbols

Fill in the Blank... With an Image An innovative type of puzzle. What should be filled in place of the question mark?

pattern visual

@Deusovi you're so smart...

Deusovi

hm? I just knew the pangram, that's all

(also, Alconja, that clue is hilarious)

Omega Krypton

you know what? vext is a person

tommy vext

i expected a photo of him lol

Alconja

@Deusovi Thanks. It amused me greatly to construct it (even if I had to dip into some questionable lists to find fodder). :)

PiIsNot3

2:45 AM

I don’t have many CCs left in my back pocket, so apologies for taking a while

Omega Krypton

so get one from your front pocket. @PiIsNot3

PiIsNot3

3:17 AM

CCCC: Sicko Mode by Travis Scott starts comeback into Top 100 at home (8)

I’m on bad connection rn, so can’t confirm any guesses for the next hour or so

msh210

4:27 AM

@Alconja Bravo!!

@PiIsNot3 dome* + (s_ t_)< + i_ + C

PiIsNot3

@msh210 Yes, that’s right

I had been playing around with the “Sicko Mode = anagram of mode” idea for a while, but couldn’t find a way to incorporate it into a nice sounding clue until now

msh210

@PiIsNot3 very nice "not end" clue breakdown

CCCC: Sandwich's fowl originally on top and on the right side (4)

Avi

6:58 AM

Away on the right side (3) - OFF. Can somebody explain this?

M Oehm

That's a cricket reference. From here: "From the perspective of a right handed batsmen, the pitch in front of his body as he takes a strike, i.e. the right side of the pitch is called off-side."

(I'm not so keen on the cricket stuff in British crosswords. I know that "duck" is zero, i.e. O and "caught" is C, but if a clue, especially a cryptic def., requires me to know more about cricket, I groan silently, because I'm never going to get it. (And I groan loudly if an otherwise interesting puzzle here turns aout to be about Pakémon.)

But I can't blame the British crossword setters for using the terminology of one of their favourite sports, of course.

msh210

8:39 AM

@PiIsNot3 very nice surface, by the way, for that Sicko Mode one

Sphinx

8:54 AM

1

Q: The state of the art in music puzzles

Group 1 No offense to old moms or pops, I would think I'm too young to know your folk record. With lots of fun fluffy pillows, vid shows flirty girl with mauvish hair in hot outfits. No frills inn full of gloomful flunkies, every exit oddly lost, two Dons' rowdy old rock music hit. Grou...

enigmatic-puzzle pattern music

Sphinx

12:19 PM

0

Q: Traffic lights in space

In a distant future, human beings are travelling between planets and even solar systems with ease. Their advanced technology allows them to drive their own space-cars, which have a cruising speed of 20% of the speed of light. Due to the increasing amount of traffic and the danger of collision, a...

physics

Sphinx

12:40 PM

1

Q: Emojional cryptics (slight return)

🏁✔️☝️📧🟥 (9) 🇵🇱👨🎣 (4) 🌈🧠🔀🦉🚫🌷❤️ (7) 🐌👈🐙💦🔗 (4) 🐝🥩❌☝️👊 (4) 🍐➖🅰️👨‍👦‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 (7) 📼🌡️🦍 (4) 🐟♀️💍 (7) 😠🧩🥍 (5) ❄️🐍🔝🇰🇷💰◀️ (4) 📺👨‍⚕️🏠 (5) 👍🚫👉💋🤥 (3) 🐳⌚🖽🍺 (5) 🐮🕬🐔🍗🌙 (4) 👖🧬👂 (5) Image version The final ans...

knowledge visual cryptic-clues emoji

Avi

12:53 PM

I object

who in the flying fish can even read emoji-speak

jafe

>;-)

Avi

oooh I have a good CC:

separate financial strategy (5)

M Oehm

1:10 PM

Ah, emojis! So colourful.

Avi

brandishes gun*+*speaking in old male Texan voice Y'all kids with these fancy doohickies - we didn' have any o' those in ahr day

oof "fancy" - I meant "new-fangled"

honestly I feel like the answer to the CCCC is FOOD

F(-owl) O(-n) (-an)D is the only thing I can think of so far though

Avi

1:35 PM

@MOehm You actually solved it???? D:

M Oehm

Yes. Good puzzle!

msh210

1:50 PM

@MOehm Can't it be Sri Lanka?

(green, orange (or saffron), maroon, and gold)

M Oehm

Hmmm. I guess the maroon counts as a kind of red. (Ten years ago I would have readily answered Libya.)

msh210

@MOehm I was thinking Libya -- I thought it was solid green -- but apparently it's changed.

@MOehm in any event, nicely done

M Oehm

Thanks.

msh210

@Avi 🐟✈️

Avi

FishPlane?

Theatrical and Trite Thing Thirsting for Trunk Turns Twice Trimmed Taunt Initially (10)

RIDICU(-le) + SOUL<

Definition "Theatrical and Trite" - little bit ehhhh, but it works, I think

separate financial strategy (5) still open

but I don't know if it's fair - ddef for Hedge

I think "financial strategy"'s tense would actually imply "hedging"

msh210

2:14 PM

@Avi I don't get it. "thing thirsting for trunk" is SOUL? How?

Gareth McCaughan

I think it's fair to say that a hedge (n.) is a financial strategy.

But I worry that there are other roughly-equally-good possible answers. E.g., what about SPLIT? (thinking e.g. of stock splits, which companies sometimes do, presumably for financial reasons)

Avi

a soul is a thing that needs a body

oh, good point

Gareth McCaughan

I don't think "trunk" means "body" in the same sense as the thing that a soul might need.

Avi

separation by planting financial strategy (5)

Gareth McCaughan

And most souls, if souls there be, aren't thirsting for bodies because they already have 'em.

Avi

2:17 PM

fair enough

Thing Tied to Trunk?

Theatrical and Trite Thing Tied To Trunk Turns Twice Trimmed Taunt Initially (10)

Gareth McCaughan

again, different sense of body

if I'm understanding you right

Avi

can probably get rid of "and" as well, need a revision on "Trunk"

Gareth McCaughan

I mean, your "trunk" is your "body" in a sense that excludes the "outer" parts, but what your soul is tied to (if there are souls and if they're tied to bodies) is the whole thing

Avi

yeah, trunk doesn't mean the whole body, apparently

Gareth McCaughan

if I were going to pick a particular part of the body to think of souls as being tied to, it would likely be the brain, which is definitely not in the trunk.

Avi

2:19 PM

maybe "Total Torso"?

but still, torso is not including the head as well

msh210

@Avi nor the arms and legs

Gareth McCaughan

indeed. and the whole idea of defining "soul" as "thing tied to a body" seems a bit iffy to me anyway.

I mean, not absolutely unacceptable, but I'd feel uncomfortable about making a clue that worked that way

and slightly dissatisfied on solving a clue that worked that way

Incidentally, the solutions to msh210's slightly improper clues were rot13(B + BANTRE< = BERTNAB) and rot13(C + ERTANAG = CERTANAG).

msh210

@GarethMcCaughan yes indeed

Avi

do "top"/"topped"/"topping" mean use the first letter or remove the first letter?

msh210

@Avi Interesting.

Avi

2:32 PM

D; stopppp just give me a straight answer

msh210

@Avi either, I suppose, depending on how it's used. "Topped" and "topping", or anywhere "top" has to be a verb, would have, I think, to mean "remove the top of"

Avi

Ok, but the noun usage is to use the first letter, right?

I'll go make one about desserts

You go make one with ambiguous noun/verb-status

msh210

No, I think I'll go make a cryptic clue that works directly or in ROT-13, and whose ROT-13 clue's solution is the ROT-13 of the original clue's solution. I'll let you know when I've finished it. Don't hold your breath. (Kidding. I'm not actually going to attempt that.)

Avi

dash after pain for cooking food (7)

PAN + ACHE

msh210

I don't get it. How does it work?

Avi

2:39 PM

dash = def, pain = ache, for cooking food = pan

dash, verve = panache

msh210

but "after X Y" means X is before Y, not after it. And also PAN doesn't mean "for cooking food"

Avi

nani

what is english

por favor

no comprendo

Dash Parking Filling Topping (7)

dash = def, P + (-g)ANACHE

M Oehm

That's more like topping filling, no?

msh210

"filling topped" would be ANACHE

Avi

true - where can I find single letter indicators for "P", besides the wikipedia page?

msh210

2:44 PM

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/P or en.wiktionary.org/wiki/p

M Oehm

Pressure, Power, Parking, piano (soft, quiet), ...

msh210

or any dictionary

M Oehm

Portugal (IVR), phosphorus, page, ...

Avi

my literal saviour

thanks :D

M Oehm

Many crosswords requuire that answers and parts of the wordplay be in a certain dictionary, for example Chambers.

Avi

2:51 PM

The class of problems that includes sorting topped filling dash (7)

cheeky

I really don't like this - it reads like a potato

msh210

@MOehm with the appropriate definition? Like, suppose Chambers has WEE meaning "small", and no other sense of that word. Could I use "micturate" to clue WEE? Or would the editor reject it as "not in Chambers"?

@Avi with this and some of the preceding ones, I don't understand the surface

Avi

I too do not understand

therefore, it reads like a potato

M Oehm

@msh210 I think it s not enough to be just there, it should also have one of the documented definitions.

msh210

@MOehm okay. Stands to reason.

Avi

Plant Panda, Mark, stopped repeating (6)

PO + TAT(-t)O(-o)

argh this is so bad

M Oehm

2:57 PM

Uh, so "stopped repeating" means to skip the repeated letters? But the second T in tattoo is also repeated, in a way.

Avi

correct, which is why I'm finding different words

6 letter words containing tato - potato ????!!!! THANKS DICTIONARY

M Oehm

Stator.

msh210

A psychoactive drug at the top of (or an underground part of) a nightshade plant (6)

Avi

can "nor" be a valid removal indicator?

msh210

@Avi I doubt it. Can you give an example?

Avi

3:05 PM

panda nor nor writer grows underground (6)

PO + (-no)TATO(-r)

actually, this is bad, because it's not the ends

it'll be more like PO + (-no)TAT(-or) >.<

Deusovi

I don't think so. And I'd also not do nonconsecutive deletions.

msh210

@Avi also no, I don't think "nor nor X" can mean "remove NOR from X"

Avi

"extremely deficient writer beheaded" => "(-no)TATO(-r)"?

take out the extremes, then behead?

msh210

@Avi also, "grows undergound" doesn't clue POTATO

Deusovi

that's a thing you can do, but it's pretty indirect, so you'll want to make the rest of the clue easy to get

(and yeah, what msh said)

Avi

3:08 PM

extremely deficient writer beheaded after panda plant (6)

Deusovi

"beheader" doesn't work

Avi

typo, my bad

sounds weird because of "panda plant" - what kind of plant grows pandas?

and why would you behead a panda plant???

hexomino

Getting back to the main CCCC, could it work this way?
F(-owl) O(-riginally) O(-n) (-an)D

Avi

how are you getting that?

Deusovi

yeah looks good to me (though i don't personally like 'top' for multiple tops)

Avi

3:11 PM

F(-owl) for originally, O(-n) for top, (-an)D for on the right?

hexomino

@Avi Slightly different to how you interpreted, the "top" clues the top of the previous three words, bit of a stretch as Deusovi says.

Deusovi

Sandwich [=] "fowl originally on" top[s], "and" on the right side

Avi

shoots clue setter

i knew it was food, I didn't understand the reading

because it was a stretch >.>

The "ANAGRAM INDICATORS AND LITERALLY SO" + the "not end ends ..." were actually super clever

this one just meh

msh210

@hexomino that is not the intended solution, sorry

And I would not be happy with myself if I used "top" for multiple tops like that.

hexomino

@msh210 Ah okay, had to ask. I wasn't sure if Avi was circling around the correct answer.

Avi

3:15 PM

yeyyyy

i'm wrong but the clue setter is not going to be shot :D

what kind of fowl belong to sandwiches? Turkey? Chicken? I eat turkey sandwiches very frequently

"side" may be a side dish in food, or a literal side like left/down

it could also be a letter that corresponds to a side? maybe?

Maybe it's this?

T(-op) + (-th)E + R + N?

i don't think it works at all, but that's probably my inexperience speaking :(

Deusovi

3:46 PM

explain?

I don't understand how that breaks the clue down

remember, every word should be used exactly once

Avi

T(-ern) + ???

is what I'm thinking

Deusovi

huh?

msh210

3:58 PM

@Avi thanks, I'm glad you don't want me shot

Gareth McCaughan

@msh210 It's also possible that Avi would prefer you to be shot but just really really likes being wrong.

msh210

@GarethMcCaughan oh, good point

Gareth McCaughan

(everyone else in unison: ugh, mathematicians)

msh210

@GarethMcCaughan one side of one sheep

Gareth McCaughan

indeed

Avi

3:59 PM

D: what's wrong with mathematicians

msh210

@Avi nothing at all

Avi

they're like half the people I know

Deusovi

(it's a joke about mathematicians being overly literal, and considering every possible case even when some are obviously unlikely)

msh210

@Avi half of each person, or...?

user58

@msh210 Get your shots, though. ;)

Avi

4:00 PM

literally half

the other half is CS

CS/math majors smh

user58

While we have people around, would anyone be up for a game of Contact or Codenames? New players welcome...

Deusovi

oh hey, this is actually a good time for me for either one

user58

I'm willing to SM and able to defend.

msh210

@user58 I'm afraid I must skedaddle, gamen

user58

\o

Hmm, maybe it'd be worth going out to collect some fresh blood from other places and repopulate the game rooms.

Deusovi

4:06 PM

We could start a game of Contact then? That one requires less time commitment.

user58

How many people do we have?

Deusovi

possibly not enough

Avi

4:37 PM

T(-ern) + O(-riginally) + ON

not sure how in the heck that could mean "side" though

wait no - originally has already been used to get (T)

T(-ern) + O(-n) + and on the right side

Avi

4:50 PM

CC: Corner a headless chef without a glance (4)

L + (-a) + (-c)OOK

CC: To transcend a storage container, turn around (3)

POT<

Deusovi

@Avi syntactically valid, but I don't like "a [...] without a" as the null-op

also, "X, turn around" doesn't mean "turn around X" or "X turned around"

PiIsNot3

5:05 PM

Is Contact still going on?

user58

we're looking for a defender but yes

John Dvorak

Hop in

Avi

coming back to contact then

Sphinx

6:32 PM

0

Q: Help me to find its location

Answer to the question with two words: Where is the last prenatal record that contains the cause of miscarriage?

knowledge lateral-thinking

Avi

7:43 PM

He never gives up

Why can't he just explain his thought process >.<

Sphinx

9:59 PM

0

Q: There are polygons with only right angles which have an odd number of corners

One of the interesting myths about a certain building in our university is that it has 13 corners. An way to dismiss this claim is to point out that a polygon with right angles must have an odd number of corners. However, as pointed out in the linked page, this is not true. Show that it is poss...

mathematics geometry

0

Q: Twelve Labours - #05 Eugene's Tables

This puzzle is part of the ‘Twelve Labours’ series, but can be solved independently. Previous instalments can be found here: Prologue | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 After being snookered by Pholus’ puzzle for longer than he had hoped, Hercules finally reached the bistro owned by his uncle – Eugene’s Tab...

word enigmatic-puzzle visual word-property

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