The Sphinx's Lair

Sphinx

01:31

0

This is a Pentominous puzzle. Rules of Pentominous: Dissect the grid into regions of 5 cells each. No two regions of the same shape can be adjacent (but they may touch at a corner). Rotations and reflections count as the same shape. Each given letter must correctly label the shape it is in. (An...

Sphinx

03:12

0

Q: The Hungry Good People

So, there are these 5 good people. They have 5 bowls of roast chicken (one per each). They also need to use both a spoon and a fork to eat it. Only two people have one pair. They also are going to hold an African Children Awareness Program, and of course, they need not be late. They need 3 second...

story

bobble

03:30

As a consequence of how wide-open my pun crossword is, I sorta hafta make it a "Something Different". Credit to Deus for introducing me to this genre.

(obviously I don't have to, but I don't see another good way to fill in the long words and make me feel legal)

Avi

03:48

@Deusovi re: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/102421/…

This feels like a nurikabe!

Deusovi

@bobble yeah, wide-open crosswords are pretty rough - Something Differents can be a lot of fun though, provided you lean into the weird answers as hard as possible

@Avi it has some similar "how can this region fit"-type logic, yeah! statue park is another good genre for that kind of thing - it's easily one of my favorites

Avi

more of an intuitive solve after I guessed the bottom right

bobble

@Deusovi I don't know how weird my answers are - mostly I'm just doing 2-3 words that combine to make me laugh

Avi

I have a lot of practice with visualizing pentominoes from a game like this

bobble

that looks neat

Avi

03:56

also, 4-color theorem, lol

Deusovi

what about it?

Avi

I could've colored my answer with 3 colors

Deusovi

ouch, the red and green there are very hard for me to tell apart

and I was looking for an answer with the actual logical path, rather than guessing

Avi

D:

all I can say is that

bottom center P is forced

looked like the bottom right corner could be a p

after trying to place it higher, brute force didn't work out. so I placed the bottom right P and a line connecting the two Ps to the upper-left of that

that gave me the P

and a T

bobble

Why don't you add this to the answer?

Avi

04:02

I will - once I'm done typing it out

you can't put an L there because then the P on the bottom left forces a touching L in conjunction with the P on top of that

thus, giving you the top left P (because you need to maintain connectivity of remaining pieces

Deusovi

there is a clean logical path where you shouldn't have to bruteforce anything

Avi

hmmmm

Deusovi

hm? there are no connectivity rules in pentominous

Avi

no like

there is connectivity of remaining pieces

basically you're looking for a clean 5-piece region like the T

or a longer region that will contain multiple pieces

in which case, it should be a region that is a multiple of 5

placing the P any other way will force 2 adjacent Ls which is invalid

Deusovi

you should probably put this in the answer, rather than here

Avi

04:06

yeah

in all honesty I'm probably going to delete the answer

I don't have enough interest to explain it all this time

and it's probably more hurtful than helpful to other solvers, to have the full answer in front of them

bobble

will you put it back up later with explanation?

Avi

if it's still available

i'm going to bed soon

but yeah basically the puzzle is like, half "to P or not to P" and half "hmm hmm so can this go here"

bobble

"To P or not to P" - say in an overly-pretentious voice for maximum effect

Avi

That's not a question

anyways, goodnight

jafe

04:53

i think the exeter museum could be the RAMM (royal albert memorial museum), or maybe the AIM (american independent museum) which is in a different exeter

oAlt

05:42

@Avi yes indeed, that is the question

Sphinx

1

Q: Will forcing chains break this sudoku puzzle?

I am trying to pick up advanced sudoku techniques by practicing with “difficult” puzzles as suggested by my sudoku app. In this puzzle, I am stuck in the position as shown below. I think I can make use of forcing chains to break the puzzle, but I am unable to pinpoint the exact cell I should look...

logical-deduction no-computers sudoku

Sphinx

06:09

0

Q: Kaboom-y numbers!

Here is a new type of puzzle poem I made. Enjoy! Note: The title is named like that for a reason. I have a number in mind, it is super cool, But there's something you need to know, or you will find it like a fool. The greatness of this number, the primes you need to understand, Prime number 21 i...

mathematics poetry history

Graylocke

06:23

Wow - I have been using this site for so many years and actually didn't know there was a chat... I feel like I've just climbed up on a mantlepiece and pushed through a mirror. Or possibly just feel like an idiot. Whichever. :/

jafe

06:50

welcome!

Graylocke

07:03

Thanks! But I may just fade back into obscurity where I can't do/say something stupid (again!) :P (Also thank you @Deusovi for the patience to let me fix my terrible solve path images...)

Deusovi

hey, welcome to the chat! don't worry, we've all said stupid things in here at some point

Sphinx

11:14

0

Q: A robot moving on a grid. Part 2

This is an extension of the discussion A robot is placed on a grid point. At each move the robot must take three steps along the edge of the grid. After each step the robot must turn right. Lengths of each step are $a$, $b$, and $c$ edges. It doesn't matter in which order $a$, $b$, $c$ are, sinc...

mathematics combinatorics grid-deduction

Sphinx

12:30

0

Q: How to divide their loot? The thieves' dilemma

Three thieves rob a jewelry store at gunpoint and end up with the following loot. 10 necklaces 8 bangles 6 rings It so happened that the jewelry was antique and valuable. They asked the scared jeweler the value of those items. “Individually, the necklaces are worth 4000 dollars each, the bangles...

riddle logical-deduction

matt

14:53

my stupid education thingy wants to silenty record my screen...
so now there's a giant blue circle in the corner of every webpage.
also it won't let me open the calculator app

i don't know why but it's annoying

North Læraðr

what

how

matt

idk

bobble

is it for test security?

or are they just being all AHH STUDENTS CANNOT BE TRUSTED

North Læraðr

@bobble My school just randomly blocks every other website

matt

@bobble yep, it's supposed to "help keep you safe and scholarly online"
also i just discovered i can drag it around

but then it snaps back into a corner

bobble

14:57

If it makes you feel any better, you can remember that they're not going to have someone look through the recordings unless they suspect something

There's just too much too long recordings

matt

hm

North Læraðr

@matt So... you shouldn't be on here?

matt

apparently not

North Læraðr

U N F O R T U N A T E

matt

it's not blocked per se, but there's just a blue circle in the corner
this applies even to my unnamed education system's website

@NorthLæraðr yes

sighs in frustration

Sphinx

15:02

1

Q: A nice robot-control puzzle

The goal is to find a sequence (a "program") of max 6 commands that will move the triangle (the "robot") through the grid and make it visit all the squares marked with a star. Two types of commands can be used: P0 makes the sequence start over. The arrows (↑, ↱, ↰) move the triangle (forward) o...

pattern visual strategy

0

Q: 119, 019, 609, 809, ?, 909 - A number sequence

This is probably very elementary for seasoned puzzlers yet I must request assistance with the following sequence: 119, 019, 609, 809, xxx, 909 What is the underlying principle here? Edit: Source: 2.2., 4, https://www.helsinki.fi/sites/default/files/atoms/files/psykologia_valintakoe_2019.pdf

pattern number-sequence

matt

thanks, @sphinx

but no thanks

bobble

@Graylocke, some name shortenings that you may see in chat: North Læraðr -> North, Deusovi -> Deus, Beastly Gerbil -> gerbil, Mithical -> Mith

some of those are obvious, but might as well put them in

hmm, I've heard both

changed anyhow to more common version

matt

"minus well" is a malapropism, aka a "bone apple tea"

(cf. "bon appetit")

North Læraðr

@bobble I was known as North WAYYY before I changed my name :P

matt

technically yes

North Læraðr

15:11

You can blame Rand al'Thor

matt

yes

North Læraðr

@bobble Also, Rand al'Thor ---> Rand

bobble

He doesn't come into chat much

matt

also matt -> matt :P

bobble

If ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE tries to shorten my name to "bob", they will regret it

(NPG, you'll help me, right?)

matt

15:15

(yes)

bobble

NPG -> No Pickle Gang, for Gray

North Læraðr

@Graylocke You come to this chat often enough and scroll through the starboard... you'll see that we say a ton of stupid stuff here, and worse enough, we star those stupid comments.

@bobble Hahahahaha

@bobble Only a pickle-lover would commit such crime

matt

@NorthLæraðr yes

bobble

the NYT's mini crossword is usually nice, but today one of the clues was "Opposite of NNW" with answer "SSE"

matt

boring

bobble

15:25

... seriously? Couldn't think of anything better for that area of the grid?

matt

apparently not

NYT be like: we can only fit three letters in here, let's do "opposite of nnw" /s

North Læraðr

@bobble Oh, I got a clue like that once too

In a different magazine

Also let us make this a thing

Jul 17 at 16:41, by Jeremy Dover

"I was 3 am, and I thought 'Just one more clue...'. Yes, I caught myself Deusolving."

matt

"deusolving" yess

bobble

why are there two 's'es?

matt

for emphasiss

North Læraðr

15:30

North-northwest? Gross

I find that offensive to my namesake

matt

yep

North Læraðr

May 15 '17 at 16:08, by Rubio

Deusovi is ... more machine now than man (twisted and evil). He can solve these things in a moment's thought.

Apparently nothing's changed in three years

matt

except now he has 41 extra brains

bobble

at least 41 extra brains. the Very Serious Lab-Coated Scientists (tm) stopped counting after 42.

matt

wow

let's see,my next class thingy is at... 9:21 yay

so what do i do for 50 minutes.... hm.......

bobble

15:36

work on making a puzzle!

matt

uh ok but i don't have any ideas

umm

bobble

make a minesweeper puzzle where all the mines are in tetromino shapes!

matt

what is a minesweeper
stupid space key

@NorthLæraðr i am suddenly reminded of my 7th grade history teacher who popped up an image of a super detailed compass and told us we had to memorize all of it as a joke

bobble

@matt gmpuzzles.com/blog/minesweeper-rules-and-info

Deusovi

@NorthLæraðr nope, not really

North Læraðr

15:40

@matt What

matt

@NorthLæraðr yes

North Læraðr

@bobble Minesweepers is fun but how would you do that over Puzzling SE?

bobble

see link above

North Læraðr

Blocked

bobble

North Læraðr

15:42

Image won't load

What is this

matt

reload the page maybe?

North Læraðr

Why does the school hate me

bobble

John Dvorak

It doesn't hate you. It just wants you full of knowledge so it has a better meal when they chew you out at the exams.

bobble

can you see that one?

matt

15:43

for me anything with the WORD "discord" is blocked
even the definition page

@JohnDvorak ouch

oh and @bobble I'm not the best puzzle maker anyway so uh

bobble

make a crossword!

matt

about what though?!

bobble

Anything.

Side note: would anyone be interested in a "How to make an Around-the-Bend" Q + A? I've been thinking about putting one together for a while.

matt

@bobble sure!
... dare I make an NPG crossword? (might cause some controversy)

bobble

You could certainly make a crossword with the theme of "a letter from PICKLE must be removed from certain answers before entering into grid"

matt

15:52

hm

North Læraðr

@bobble yup

matt

@north (random question) favorite things to do as a tree?

North Læraðr

@matt Photosynthesize

Getting hugs (very rare though)

bobble

sends hugs to North

matt

@bobble ... covid?

North Læraðr

15:55

@matt No, like tree-huggers

bobble

Trees can't get animal diseases, usually

North Læraðr

Trees don't get covid because we can't sneeze

Duh

matt

taste the sun

►

from a bill wurtz video

North Læraðr

@matt Yea I am familiar with it

matt

haha nice

"we could make a religion out of this"

North Læraðr

15:58

Have you ever had a dream like this?

►

Beastly Gerbil

One of the best videos of all time ^

Also an audio insight into my brain during exams

bobble

I'm not clicking on that

matt

@bobble why not?

bobble

I'm not clicking on that

Beastly Gerbil

Omg it has 52 million views... wow lol

North Læraðr

16:01

@bobble DO IT

bobble

I'm not clicking on that

North Læraðr

It's not anything bad, it's just stupid

@BeastlyGerbil Me too

bobble

Okay, so it's stupid. Perfect reason to not click

Beastly Gerbil

You have to

For the culture

North Læraðr

@BeastlyGerbil But you've defnitely had a dream like that right?

@bobble You must

bobble

16:02

I like being un-cultured.

Beastly Gerbil

oh 100%, I know exactly what hes on about

North Læraðr

Hey @Sid long time!

Sid

Hello.

Yeah. Been a while. Online classes are a pain in my back.

North Læraðr

It's pain in my tooshie. Literally. My gluteus maximus is literally screaming bc I'm sitting on the ground

I think I pulled a muscle

matt

@NorthLæraðr there's something called a chair

very useful

North Læraðr

16:06

@matt My table is a ground table thing

John Dvorak

"My gluteus maximus is literally screaming " - it's not.

bobble

I got my dad's old office chair. It's one of those wheeled spinny ones.

matt

@NorthLæraðr then get a taller table

North Læraðr

Oh geez John's here

Sid

@bobble those are the best.

North Læraðr

16:06

@bobble Oh those are so fun

John Dvorak

would a kneeling chair help?

matt

@bobble wheeled spinny chairs are the best chairs in existence

North Læraðr

@JohnDvorak But my knees would literally be screaming :P

John Dvorak

no, they wouldn't.

matt

*figuratively

North Læraðr

16:07

@JohnDvorak Yes they would

They would grow vocal chords

matt

knees cannot scream

John Dvorak

standing desk? Or do you also have vocal chords in your feet?

North Læraðr

@JohnDvorak I have vocal chords all over my body, actually

matt

this is creepy

North Læraðr

I have a rather polyphonic body

matt

16:08

@NorthLæraðr they are called "pain receptors"

North Læraðr

It

John Dvorak

you should have kept the typo. Helps the "I'm creeepyyy" mood.

Sid

I haven't made a puzzle in a long time.

North Læraðr

@JohnDvorak True....

matt

@Sid indeed

@NorthLæraðr we must revive the It

Sid

16:10

To be honest, I haven't done anything on Puzzling in a long time. Other than lurk around here on chat

matt

hm

North Læraðr

@Sid Same though

matt

thinks of a puzzle to make

matt

16:30

nothin' yet

matt

16:54

@bobble good job, caption writers

bobble

To be fair, the term they were defining could be better shown visually than in words.

matt

17:11

yes but the captions should explain everything in the image

also i just had the stupidest kahoot ever

bobble

oh, I loved kahoots

matt

yes
but the teacher didn't even care about the points or anything.
if you want to give us a quiz then just give us a quiz

bobble

Deus, unsolved CC alert: puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/102431

matt

hmm

@Deusovi chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/55676661#55676661

matt

got more verbs to conjugate

Deusovi

17:21

hello! I'll give it a look

not sure I see anything at the moment though

Jeremy Dover

@bobble Is there a better time for you this week to have time to look at a puzzle? I'm putting the finishing touches on one that you inspired, and I'd like to post it at a time when you have a chance to look at it. No commitment on your part, of course, just a courtesy since you did provide inspiration.

bobble

I have plenty of time today

and I'm honored to be an inspiration :)

rest of the week I predict lots of homework

Jeremy Dover

Cool, I'll try to get it done. Alas no promises...it has everything I want in it. The question is what has crept in that I didn't want...

matt

@bobble oh no

Sphinx

0

Q: That's fine, most of my family doesn't want to acknowledge being related to me either

Today I share a 100% true story from my past. I use to meet my little brother to eat together with him regularly, but any time his friends or others that knew him would meet me the conversation always seemed to go the same way. They would ask who I was but they never believed that I was just com...

lateral-thinking

bobble

17:35

Y'know, there's going to be two puzzles inspired by me after Jeremy posts his. That's two more than I ever expected to exist.

matt

hmm

40% of the cinamon fell off my graham crackers

it is unfortunate

Mithical

rip

matt

yes

bobble

agreement between a pickle-lover and a NPG member!

shall we hold peace talks?

matt

@mithical how are your ~~pickles~~ fat green sticks today?

@bobble yes

Mithical

17:49

@matt I was fasting today; broke my fast about half an hour ago, but still haven't really eaten anything, mostly focused on rehydration

probably need to get some salt though

matt

fasting?

Mithical

:eyes:

@matt not eating or drinking

matt

i know what fasting is but why?

jafe

the opposite of slowing

4

matt

@jafe thank you for the insight :P

Mithical

17:50

Yom Kippur

matt

hm okay :)

continues to eat cinnamon-less graham crackers

... when was the last c4?

bobble

msh210

@msh210, my request for a hint still stands

matt

my calendar must be out of date; i cannot find msh210 anywhere on it

:p

jafe

yesterday, by msh210

CCCC: Quaint or rubbish? A throwback: Exeter museum stuff from long ago (10)

matt

self facepalm

jafe

17:55

as opposed to palming someone else's face? :P

bobble

DON'T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE'S FACES

matt

@jafe blegh

@bobble especially now

jafe

theory: "A throwback" means moving the letter A further towards the back of the word

matt

hm maybe

bb in ~20mins

msh210

@bobble yes, sorry, I've been offline for >24 hours for the aforementioned Yom Kippur.

bobble

18:01

no problem!

msh210

C4 hint: "Quaint or rubbish?" is so worded so as to be similar to a recent C4; otherwise, "Rubbish?" alone would suffice.

3

matt

hmm

... recent c4...

ah i see

the wordplay is confusing lol

Sphinx

18:50

0

Q: What should I do with these emails?

I've been sent a bunch of very odd emails recently, starting on Monday and sent daily until last Thursday. I'm not 100% sure what they mean or why I am being sent them, but perhaps you could help me. Every email is sent from someone called '[email protected]' and the subject is always 'Advice...

enigmatic-puzzle steganography

Mithical

Finally got around to posting a making-of for my Dragonborn puzzle.

bobble

I had splenty of space to work with. <-- typo found

Mithical

> (There were a couple other small typos - dangers of working without spellcheck - but nothing major arose.)

(fixed, thanks)

bobble

I enjoyed how your creation method was "just do it, you know, a little there and then why not do this and that"

Mithical

that is indeed how I work :P

matt

19:03

@Mithical im kinda the same way tbh, just like "why not do this and this?"

Beastly Gerbil

@matt I hath indeed! Took me long enough :P

matt

@BeastlyGerbil ... think you meant to comment that on your puzzle?

how long exactly did it take?!

Beastly Gerbil

Put it here instead so as not to clutter comments on the post

Well its been months since my last puzzle

This one didn't take too long to make, maybe a few days but it has a clever gimmick I wanted to use in someway

matt

ooh fancy

also should the fourth "X" in the last email be italicized?

wait, hold on...

Beastly Gerbil

It is :)

Deusovi

19:12

was the "gimmick" the last step of the puzzle?

matt

rettelhtx ... what could this mean?

Beastly Gerbil

@Deusovi yeah, interpeting clock hands as sempahore

matt

rot13 didn't help

just gave me erggryugk

Deusovi

yep that's something I think most puzzlers have discovered at some point

Beastly Gerbil

I'll try and fix the error too

@Deus oh I dont think I've seen it before

Damn thought id come up wiith something then

Deusovi

19:14

it's discovered independently surprisingly often

matt

agh deus beat me to it

Deusovi

I had the idea near the time when I first learned about hunt puzzles; Jack Lance used it in his PI Hunt 1; I've seen it mentioned in a presentation about learning to make puzzles

matt

hmm

Beastly Gerbil

Yeah realistically I'm not surprised I'm not the first to come up with it

Its a neat lil trick

matt

now i want to make a steganography puzzle

Beastly Gerbil

19:17

Theyre very fun to make

Def one of my favourite sub-topics

matt

aight then :) just need some inspiration then...

Mithical

Not easy to make if you're trying for something interesting, though.

28 mins ago, by Mithical

Finally got around to posting a making-of for my Dragonborn puzzle.

;P

matt

? saw it already

Beastly Gerbil

I agree, I'd say steganography is one of the hardest genres to come up with new ideas

But sometimes it doesn't have to be new, just to have a twist

@Deusovi corrected to 'dialoged' by the way

Deusovi

@Mithical yeah, unfortunately a lot of them just become "follow this direction, then follow this direction, then follow this direction..." -- while that can be fun, it's usually most interesting when there's reuse of information, or things hidden in novel ways

matt

19:22

@Deusovi good tip

Mithical

@matt I'm saying use it as inspiration (mostly jokingly).

matt

ill keep that in mind then /s

[still thinking abt what to put in my puzzle...]

Beastly Gerbil

Take your time

Mithical

^

Beastly Gerbil

The best puzzles take a) ages to come up with and b) ages to make

matt

19:32

hmm

Mithical

I've currently got a stego puzzle in a non-so-complete form sitting in a text file that's waiting for me to actually work on it

matt

and the goal is not to do a Boring "the cApital letters spell the solution" thing, right? that just seems Dumb

Beastly Gerbil

Pretty much

Try to hide your info in something that doesn't look like its hiding something

matt

hm okay

example, if you wouldnt mind?

Beastly Gerbil

138

Q: A mysterious email from Andrew Void

You are a secret agent in the service of the KGB, about to embark on a highly dangerous mission to infiltrate MI6. You have your disguise, your papers, and your backstory all prepared. The night before your departure, you receive the following email: From: Andrew Void < [email protected]...

story steganography

Good example ^

Doesn't look suspicious, but hides a message

matt

19:36

before the "e" 's.

hm okay

Beastly Gerbil

Thats a simple version with one mechanic, there can be many more involved

matt

like "before the e's and after the p's"

Beastly Gerbil

9

A: Strategies for solving steganography puzzles

This is how you can get started - Check out this article on Wikipedia which provides an insight. It also mentions some techniques used in Steganography. So, when you see a puzzle with steganography tag added you can start by looking at the following things - First word/letters of each line...

matt

as a basic example

Beastly Gerbil

That gives lots of 'mechanics' for you

Sphinx

19:40

0

Q: Unusual number sequence problem

The sequence is: 849 352 768 493 527 This one has been puzzling me for days. I would appreciate any insight. Regards Joe

number-sequence

Beastly Gerbil

Oh and @matt the puzzle does need to hint in some form or another how to solve

It can be a subtle hint but there does need to be a starting point

Mithical

Yeah, you, uh, don't want to forget that... :|

Beastly Gerbil

And the starting point is usually smth like initials, capitals etc

Just to nudge you in a certain direction

matt

alright :)

just thought of this:
even now, dead-life eaters try to exterminate red spindles

Mithical

nwesyoeds

matt

19:58

yeah it wasn't supposed to spell anything lol

but the sentence is funny, right? :p

Transcript for