The Sphinx's Lair

3:00 PM

@AnthonyIngram-Westover Oh, that's an issue we actively avoid in Lit. SE

We try very hard to diversify the kinds of literature there. Such as our monthly reading challenges!

Which I have only participated in one but shhh

I was one of only two students at my University to ever double major in Computer Science and Creative Writing, and we were the same year too, so we had like 99% of our classes together

bobble

Anyone want Bobble's Book Recommendations?

Anthony Ingram-Westover

We even got the same first job after college

I'm always up for Book recs

bobble

Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein, are hands down the best historical fiction novels I have ever read

World War II women doing spy work and flying planes!

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Hmm, not a genre I typically go for, but if there's ever a way to try something new it's to start with the best

bobble

3:04 PM

Rose has a major plot spoiler for Verity in it, so read it after

Both have the conceit that they're hand-written by the point of view characters, so the narration is just DA BEST. So much character!

Anthony Ingram-Westover

For fantasy series, I'd recommend the Demon Cycle series by Peter V. Brett. Not as well known as some of the other fantasy series out there, but unlike some authors cough coughRothfuss and Martincough cough he actually finished the series

Starts with The Warded Man (The Painted Man in the UK)

bobble

For superheroes, the Sidekick Squad series (Not Your Sidekick, Not Your Vilnian, Not Your Backup, and the as-yet unreleased Not Your Hero). Basically: it's like any superhero story, except the characters are incredibly diverse in gender, sexuality, and race.

(I will stop now. Don't want to flood the chat)

Prince North Læraðr

Young Elites series is amazing should be read 10/10. Also 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is one of the best mystery books I have personally ever read

bobble

Young Elites is great, I second this.

Prince North Læraðr

Also, the new Halloween Google Doodle is soooo cute

"Spicy!" a book by Q. Min

bobble

3:15 PM

Lit.SE doesn't have any questions & answers that are short enough for the Tour, it seems

Prince North Læraðr

Wdym?

bobble

Your Tour question is the standard unicorns-and-daisies one, at least for me

Prince North Læraðr

Yea

bobble

To be selected for the Tour, there has to be a sufficiently short question with two sufficiently short answers, all with no spoiler blocks

Prince North Læraðr

I think it's just bc it's a beta site still

Oh okay

Hey Matt!

@bobble You should also stop by our chat page :P

matt

3:19 PM

hey North! and bobble!

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble Oh wait, I forgot! You would already have sufficient enough rep to comment: I forgot about associate bonus!

Sciborg

quietly feels betrayed

bobble

5

A: What determines the questions available for selection in the tour page?

To formalize the proper criteria, as per the query linked in the other answer: in order to appear as an eligible choice for the Tour page, a question must: Be less than or equal to 400 characters in length, including spaces (the rendered HTML is checked for this criterion, not the Markdown or r...

Prince North Læraðr

You get automatically get 100 rep because you have over (I think it was 250) reputation in a site

matt

(oh sorry mick)

hey Mick!

bobble

3:21 PM

and here is SQA's meta question about Tour selection from when there were still in beta

Sciborg

:p

bobble

Things you learn from trawling a bunch of site metas

matt

indeed.

Prince North Læraðr

(When you're trying to increase your edit count, so you need to ask the mods if it's being extra by editing slightly wordings in tag excerpts)

matt

heh

Prince North Læraðr

3:25 PM

I am only 245 edits away from reaching the copy editor gold badge :(((

Voldemort's Wrath

hhhhhiiiiiiiiiiii

Prince North Læraðr

hiiiihhiiihiihiiii

Voldemort's Wrath

hows it gooooiiiiinnnnngggg

oAlt

@PrinceNorthLæraðr AGREEE

matt

hiiiiiiii vooooollllllldddddyyyyyyyyy

Voldemort's Wrath

3:27 PM

hiiiiii mmmmaaaaaaatttttttt

Prince North Læraðr

I'm seeing a lot of "hi"s.

o/

\o

\O/

omgsh extra excited

3:28 PM

Hello He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!

Voldemort's Wrath

heeeelllllloooooo sssscccciiiibbboooorrrrrgggggg

watcha doin?

Sciborg

Taking my lunch break :)

Voldemort's Wrath

I love lunch breaks!

What's for lunch?

Sciborg

I've got some macaroni and cheese on the stove :D

What are you doin?

Voldemort's Wrath

I'm in math class

I'm bored

Prince North Læraðr

3:31 PM

@Voldemort'sWrath Saaaame!

Sciborg

Understandable

Voldemort's Wrath

lol nice north

i actually love math but it's boring because I already know the content we're doing

Ankoganit

Been there

Voldemort's Wrath

yep

@Sciborg Is it good mac and cheese or bad mac and cheese?

Ankoganit

Are schools open yet or do you all have online classes?

Voldemort's Wrath

3:33 PM

online for mee

Sciborg

It's just Kraft, I usually coat it in like 2 pounds of butter.

So it's pretty darn yummy

oof

I see

more artery cloggers

I have the right to have a heart attack if I want to dangit

Voldemort's Wrath

3:34 PM

absolutely :):)

but that would make me sad :(:(

heart attack = bad [citation needed]

Sciborg

Dying is bad [source needed]

Prince North Læraðr

@Voldemort'sWrath That just killed me

Voldemort's Wrath

oof sorry for your death north

Ankoganit

@PrinceNorthLæraðr a heart attack?

RIP North

Prince North Læraðr

Dying is bad [source: heart attack=bad[citation:dying is bad]]

Voldemort's Wrath

3:35 PM

correction: dying is bad [source: heart attack = bad [citation needed]]

oh no a circular reference! quick! chest compressions!

Prince North Læraðr

@Voldemort'sWrath Wikipedia in a nutshell

lol

^ nice

Dangit I knew you were about to post it

Voldemort's Wrath

3:36 PM

I was looking for it lol XD

Ankoganit

:D

Sciborg

I could sense the xkcd energy

Prince North Læraðr

Ah yes, the ritualistic XKCD in order to appease the gods

Voldemort's Wrath

it's like a brite humming

the xkcd energy

Sciborg

My favorite part is the passive-aggressive rollover text

Voldemort's Wrath

3:38 PM

I love the tooltip text everytime

Sciborg

"I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to Wikipedia"

"To keep people on their toes, I'm not going to say which book or what author"

Voldemort's Wrath

btw today:

Doing great here in the sixth and hopefully final year of the 2016 election.

Sciborg

I'm angry at how accurate that is

Voldemort's Wrath

yes

Sciborg

My lunch is over but I'll be back later today :)

bobble

4:42 PM

you're back fast, apparently

Sciborg

ssshhh i have you open while i code

bobble

5:20 PM

physics teacher - "have you, male or female (or somewhere in-between)..."

Sciborg

They said that just now?

bobble

yep :)

we're having a lecture about Women In Physics.

Sciborg

Aww. Brownie points for inclusion :D

There was a chemistry lecturer at one of my research conferences who started her speech with "ladies and gentlemen, and gentle-folk and gentle-people" and it was really cute

Sphinx

5:51 PM

0

Q: Aluminum Foil Folds and Cut

A diamond shape monomino that is made from a roll of aluminum foil should be converted into an x-shape pentomino (see figures) by making folds on monomino foil. And with only one straight cut using a pair of scissors all the cut-off foil pieces made could be unfolded to form the pentomino with ...

bobble

Cotton Headed Ninnymuggins, I'm here to discus that answer. You can ping me with @bobble.

(I would open an answer-specific chatroom, but I have no idea how to do that)

Sciborg

The puzzle setup is a little vague, it's good you asked for clarification

bobble

That's referring to the above question, not the answer?

Sciborg

Oh oops, which answer are you referring to

bobble

0

A: Celebrity picture rebus

Ed Sheeran. It's a guy, presumably named Ed who is sheering sheep.

Sciborg

5:58 PM

Ah

bobble

multiple moderation tasks at once >_<

Sciborg

Sorry, I thought you were talking about discussing the tinfoil question :p

Anthony Ingram-Westover

My first thought was still the Deepthinker drama, because that's the new user who was involved in that

Which it sorta is

bobble

I really hope they come in, as I said, I don't want to get into a comment argument

Sciborg

Yeah, the answer he is referring to is the Deepthinker one where this user gave a more complete answer and Deepthinker lost the checkmark and got into a bit of a tizzy about it

bobble

6:00 PM

And I know about it, I was the one telling off Deepthinker in the question's comments

Sciborg

I'm on your side of the fence here about not answering questions with already-accepted answers - usually if you have something new to contribute to the existing answer, it's nice to comment it, not post your own

Again, the whole "this is a collab site" thing

But at the same time, once in a while (rarely) the accepted answer is incomplete and it's obvious there can be more to contribute, and a new post with a more polished/complete solution can sometimes be nice

bobble

It's not even a good answer. I mean, you can't just declare that a person is named "Ed" because it's useful for your answer. That's not how rebuses work

Sciborg

The Deepthinker situation was a situation where their answer was incomplete and there was more to contribute, a user gave a much more complete and polished answer, and OP made the choice to switch the check - which is completely their choice and they are free to do so.

bobble

Yep, totally agree there

Anthony Ingram-Westover

I can see both sides of the coin, but definitely agree in this case. There are some situations where a new answer can make sense even if there's an accepted answer

Like my earlier example, if there's an accepted answer but somebody has an elegant mathematical proof for the general case, I think that justifies adding a new answer

Sciborg

6:06 PM

Exactly, yeah.

I mean, if I gave an answer that I knew wasn't perfect, but it was accepted but OP clearly wants more out of it too, and then Stiv hopped in and gave a beautiful complete answer, I'd probably ask OP to switch checkmark to Stiv.

Anthony Ingram-Westover

But in this case, the new answer added absolutely nothing

Sciborg

Yeah

bobble

Two important considerations when you give a new answer when there's already an accepted one: Does this answer add something of value? And does it agree with the accepted answer, which is the correct answer for this puzzle?

On both counts, this answer is bad.

"this" being the above-linked answer to a rebus

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Right

matt

I have returnèd

Sciborg

6:08 PM

I like those as general guidelines for considering adding new answers to accepted questions. Does it add value? and Does it agree with the accepted correct answer?

Anthony Ingram-Westover

I can see situations where the second consideration won't be true, so I think the first consideration is the crucial one

bobble

Sometimes you can violate the second one, such as if the correct answer is terrible and another fits much better.

Anthony Ingram-Westover

There may be times where the accepted answer might not be correct (I'm thinking of optimization puzzles, usually it will be correct but it's possible to have an accepted answer that is later found to be incorrect)

Some riddles, I'd say adding another answer the creator didn't intend but still fits could also be of value

But I'm not much of a riddle person, so I use those to see where there can be confusion in creating a puzzle

bobble

Ideally an optimization puzzle wouldn't award the checkmark until the optimal solution has been found. Of course that requires the OP to know the optimal solution, but they should anyways.

Sciborg

That's fair. I think the adding value requirement is indeed the important one

But if it's something that can be expressed in a comment, I would lean towards just leaving a comment on the accepted answer if possible.

Like if it's just "hey, this answer might fit that one clue you were stuck on"

bobble

6:11 PM

Yep, that's what comments are for!

Sciborg

Because collaboration!

bobble

thoughts on this edit of mine?

Sciborg

That clears it up

The original explanation was missing the exact rules

bobble

well, I'll be leaving for lunch right now. Cotton Headed Ninnymuggins, I'll be here later if you still want to discuss.

Sciborg

Seeya :)

Sphinx

6:40 PM

2

Q: Minimum number of moves to win this number game

This puzzle is inspired by this puzzle that I answered: Is equality possible? Here is the number grid from that puzzle: And here is the rule for how to move: A move consists of selecting two adjacent squares (either vertically, horizontally or diagonally) and dividing the sum of the two number...

mathematics strategy optimization

Voldemort's Wrath

7:03 PM

@bobble It doesn't have to agree with an accepted answer. It could just be an interesting insight or another answer someone else thought of. Though I agree that it shouldn't have been posted because it copied another answer.

bobble

It's... agggh. People are putting words into my mouth in that comment chain, and I just want them to come into chat to talk.

Voldemort's Wrath

@bobble They could have decided the name was "sheeran" and connected it to the hint

Sorry to frustrate you :):)

bobble

Still doesn't make it valid - you can't make up words in a rebus, there has to be a clear hint

Voldemort's Wrath

The hint was that it was a famous singer

And with "Sheeran," you get to the answer Ed Sheeran

TBH Ed Sheeran makes more sense (to me) than Shawn Mendes

bobble

Doesn't use all the the rebus - not the Ds on the wall, at least.

Also note that a very similar answer was already there

Voldemort's Wrath

7:07 PM

Ed Sheeran? IDK, still a good answer but obviously shouldn't have been posted b/c of the duplicate thing

bobble

In my opinion it's terrible, but you can think as you wish.

Voldemort's Wrath

Okay let's not get too harsh :):)

bobble

I wouldn't have thought it was terrible if I hadn't had to KEEP DEALING WITH PEOPLE TELLING ME I'M WRONG over this one answer that definitely isn't good.

Voldemort's Wrath

See, now you're disregarding the fact that "you can think as you wish." People obviously found that answer good (obviously besides the duplicate of it) and if they are saying that to you, you can't start getting aggressive.

bobble

I am busy. I do not want to deal with this right now. Please, please stop.

Voldemort's Wrath

7:11 PM

as you wish

bobble

I am not trying to be aggressive. I am just very, very done.

Deusovi

Hints are generally not considered part of the puzzle, and using them as a primary justification is unhelpful.

bobble

Okay, let's see if I can express myself clearer. I am upset because when I tried to explain why an answer should not have been posted, someone else cam along attacking a tiny part of my comment. Then they subsequently refused to acknowledge anything I said as valid. The answer itself isn't great - doesn't use all the parts, randomly assigns a name to a person, doesn't justify the "an" part of "sheeran", and was already posted. (cont)

Deusovi

@Voldemort'sWrath I understand that you think the answer is good, but please do not disregard other people's feelings on it. In this case, bobble's frustration is not solely due to the answer itself, but also the context surrounding it and the responses ignoring most of her criticism about the answer (both in the comments, and here). Telling someone they can't start to feel a certain way isn't helpful.

bobble

(cont) In chat here Voldermort's Wrath piled on, defending the answer. I disagree, obviously. At this point it was a lot at once, I didn't want to just leave him without any responses, and I had a bunch of classwork going on at the same time. I got extremely upset, which I apologize for.

Deusovi

7:24 PM

@bobble I agree that the answer is bad (or at the very least, very lacking). I'd recommend downvoting, maybe leaving a polite comment explaining your concerns, and moving on (well, in this case, it's deleted, so you don't have to worry about that). Sometimes, people just miss the point so much that it's not worth the effort to continue to engage. It's frustrating (believe me, I know this very well), but your time and energy is probably better spent elsewhere.

bobble

Most of my comments there were actually talking with someone else, who I very quickly tried to direct to the chat. I'm not sure if the original answerer commented at all.

But point is taken.

Deusovi

right, understandable

Sciborg

7:47 PM

It was understandable for you to be frustrated bobble, your feelings are valid. No need to apologize.

bobble

I wasn't being very coherent over the internets by the end of this

"end of this" being the Voldy episode in the chatroom

Sciborg

When somebody is upset it's important to acknowledge their feelings and talk about it constructively, "stop being aggressive" is not constructive as Deus said. There was a genuine reason for you to be irritated, I feel that Voldy was a bit out of line there.

bobble

heh. "acknowledge their feelings". that is not how I've usually experience the world when I'm upset.

My parents have gone to the lengths of berating me for the stupidity of feeling embarrassed.

hmm I shouldn't turn this chat into my dumping ground. sorry.

Sciborg

It sucks to get the verbal equivalent of "whatever" when there are emotions and genuine things you want to discuss, I feel that is what happened here and it's not on you. I hope we can talk about it when they get back so we can work things out.

matt

@bobble that sucks :(

bobble

8:31 PM

on a lighter note, here's my list of subject folders for school stuff:

Lukas Rotter

Is everything except "Useless" empty?

bobble

Nope :)

Avi

ayy comp sci

there's a 50% chance I could help with random topics within

reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/jkzcje/even_i_do_so

matt

what is in "useless"?

puzzles and things?

bobble

Class of 2021 and Homeroom.

I have a folder in a separate area with a "puzzles" folder inside it

matt

8:38 PM

nice

ahh keyboard messed up

*what's everyone up to?

bobble

watching >1.5 hours of flipped lectures

matt

flipped?

bobble

lecture as homework, discussion in class

matt

that does seem a bit backwards

bobble

I write all my notes in rot13's text box, then copy-paste into a Google Doc. Best system ever.

matt

8:46 PM

why not just use google docs to begin with? I mean...

bobble

It will try to auto-format my stuff. I don't want it to.

matt

what about the times you have to write those dreaded equations?

bobble

no equations in these notes, just words

matt

ah I see

besides, google docs' equation editor is a piece of crap

bobble

I'm really good at it after all the formatting I did for Chem

Deusovi

8:49 PM

@bobble ctrl+a, format -> number -> plain text

bobble

??? The auto-formatting is auto-caps and making things into lists

matt

plain text = no fancy formatting stuff at all, I think

Deusovi

oh google docs, not google sheets

misread

i believe there's a way to turn off autoformatting there too

matt

checking real quick

Deusovi

tools -> preferences will turn off autocaps

bobble

8:52 PM

Would that turn it off for just one folder or doc? I still want autocaps for everywhere else.

matt

it will do it for every new doc you make

not great, I know

Federico

9:19 PM

I found a band on youtube that has a puzzle in the video description. anyone interested in helping?

(there is a bunch of 3-digit numbers and then something that looks like it is base64 encoded, but it does not decode to anything meaningful)

bobble

Main-site is probably better than chat.

Much more audience there

Federico

really? is it on topic even if I don't know the solution?

bobble

Yes, just make sure to cite your source clearly.

Federico

ok, then I'll wait tomorrow morning to write it properly

bobble

You can use real

Deusovi

9:21 PM

yep, questions about puzzles you don't know the answer to are perfectly fine -- but ideally, you'd include everything there in the question itself

bobble

I think. Not entirely sure what "real" is for

Deusovi

and we also don't allow questions from ongoing competitions. sounds like this isn't one, but just something to keep in mind

Federico

@Deusovi ok, I'll check the rules then. It says "SOLVE THE PUZZLE. GET BONUS MATERIAL." (all caps in the original)

Lukas Rotter

The 3-digit numbers say

Backward and forward we walk in a line
Over a square made of space and time
Behold the numbers sometimes can lie
Not all of them in order you'll find.

Clusters of data.
Sectors and files.
Over and over.
Need to optimize.
Reading and writing.
Sorting and wiping.
Staring and waiting.
Sometimes frustrating.

When all the matrix is clear in your mind.
All of those numbers are easy to find.
Just look around. No need to grind.
Because the answer is all in plain sight.

Put them together. Clear all the spaces.

they're just rot13(nfpvv)

reading that makes me doubt the only other thing required is the base64, but who knows

bobble

rot13 = (decode at rot13.com)

Federico

9:28 PM

bloody hell, and I haven't even mentioned the video XD

bobble

there are smart people in the Lair

Lukas Rotter

ah ok, the desc mentions clusters within the song and the music video also indicates it. perhaps something with the shapes or actual audio data. I'll refrain from going deeper until the puzzle is posted :P

(probably with the cells)

Federico

ok, I'll write it now

bobble

(side note: I really like your A.SE posts)

Federico

thanks :)

Federico

9:43 PM

tag suggestions? I don't think "real" applies, right?

bobble

again, I'm not sure what "real" is supposed to be. It feels meta-taggy

If there's no clear method of solving, [enignmatic-puzzle] is applicable

Federico

for the moment I'll go with cipher and enigmatic-puzzle

bobble

since there's apparently an ASCII substitution going on, [cipher] would work

Federico

:D

bobble

looking forward to the question!

Lukas Rotter

9:45 PM

Oh god, transcribing that grid will be fun xD

Federico

posted

but no grid at the moment :P

Ann Zen

Can you tell me how to pad 2 gifs when they are on the same line?

bobble

"pad"? You can make two images be on the same line by separating them with a space and not a newline

Ann Zen

yeah

like separating by a tab

bobble

I have no idea

Perhaps add a third, entirely white-space image?

Ann Zen

9:47 PM

oh

Okay, thanks!

Sciborg

SE doesn't support CSS for this kind of thing right? Otherwise I'd say embed it as an <img src></img> and set the padding manually.

bobble

img tags do work, as far as I know

Sciborg

Ah, then you can do <img src="(image url)" style="padding-left:10px;"> or something similar, and set left padding on the left image and right padding on the right image.

Lukas Rotter

I suspect all style="" will be blocked

but I dunno

Sciborg

That was what i figured, it would probably allow the img but block the style.

But I don't know for sure

Lukas Rotter

9:51 PM

otherwise there would be some really funky posts on here for sure :P

Sciborg

Yeah :p

bobble

also, due to ~~North threatening my bobblies~~ finding an interesting question on Lit.SE, I'm going to join it.

Sciborg

Ooh nice!

bobble

are you supposed to be working right now?

Sciborg

It's 5:52 PM here, I finished at 5

bobble

9:54 PM

Did you like my list of school folders above?

Sciborg

"Useless" is pretty accurate for a lot of classes lol

Sphinx

1

Q: A (cipher?) puzzle in a YouTube video description

So, by chance I stumbled upon this video: MASTER BOOT RECORD - C:\DEFRAG that contains the following puzzle in the video description: 066 097 099 107 119 097 114 100 032 097 110 100 032 102 111 114 119 097 114 100 032 119 101 032 119 097 108 107 032 105 110 032 097 032 108 105 110 101 013 010 07...

enigmatic-puzzle cipher

Sciborg

Also hi Federico! I don't recall seeing you around before, nice to seeya.

bobble

How many of your classes in college would you identify as "useless"?

Sciborg

I went to a liberal arts college where we had to take a lot of ~~useless~~ mandatory gen ed classes, so... about 25%

But there were a lot of gen ed classes I thought I would dislike and actually really enjoyed, like a World History class

Anthony Ingram-Westover

9:58 PM

I needed 127 credits to graduate. My primary major required 32 credits... That's 95 extra credits that I had to fill in, almost all of them were completely useles

Sciborg

Your major required only 32 credits? What??

Lukas Rotter

@Federico I think it would be useful to include a screenshot of the image in the video, so the puzzle is (more likely to be) self-contained (if it has nothing to do with the actual audio)

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Yeah, most majors at my university were 30-36 credits. Comp Sci was 32 credits

bobble

I have a few credits, through summer programs. And I've taken a bunch of APs to hopefully get the boring classes out of the way.

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Meteorology was 36, English was 30

Sciborg

9:59 PM

Dude, my compsci major was 62 credits...

I'm shook

Lukas Rotter

also, the fact that[00:00] 01 CLUSTER 777
[15:12] 02 CLUSTER 1337

Transcript for