The Sphinx's Lair

typical econ class: supply-demand chains, productivity, finance
your class, apparently: "every law is enforced by the barrel of a gun..." *drags on weed pipe*

Avi

blows out smoke

matt

5:05 PM

(also: i really don't know why multiline markdown in here isn't rendered)
**like this should be in bold**

Sciborg

Reminds me of a class I took in college that was supposed to be World History, but every day the professor derailed into deep philosophical stories from being a Marine and taught us life lessons and how to do taxes

bobble

I think I may have gotten the Weird Teacher

Avi

ayy girl you're a bold one
Girl: **...**

matt

girl: 1

(a bold one)

bobble

I also got the Weird Teacher for AP World History, for 11th grade English, for Japanese, for AP Chemistry... is this good luck or bad luck?

Avi

5:08 PM

ok ok lemme fix this

matt

@bobble yes

Avi

ayy girl you're a bold one
Girl: **1**

matt

see what i mean, it's not bold, it's showing the actual markdown

Sciborg

Markup text doesn't work after you put a line break, i have no idea why

Avi

Meme 1: shitty pickup line, Meme 2: bold one taken literally, Meme 3: line break fails

matt

5:09 PM

all the memes

*flashbacks to pickles*

Sciborg

my screen reader is having a seizure reading out "STAR STAR ONE STAR STAR" and it's hilarious

Avi

oof

matt

hm

Avi

is it on chrome web store yet

Sciborg

Seems like it should be honestly

matt

5:10 PM

heh

what exactly does the voice sound like?

Sciborg

It sounds like the default male Google Translate voice, let me see if there are more options

matt

the one that reads armenian and icelandic?

Sciborg

Ooh, there's another male voice that sounds cool, I might keep this one.

matt

nice

Sciborg

I was using "Microsoft David"

But there's also "Microsoft Mark" and "Microsoft Zira"

And if I switch to eSpeak voices there's a bunch

matt

5:13 PM

how do they (Mark and Zira) read "PrinceNorthLæraðr"?

Sciborg

Same way, "Prince North LURRARRRR"

"John Dvorak" turns into "John DIV-OR-JAAK" somehow

matt

as compared to "Prince North LRARHIHSRHRSRR"?

Sciborg

"GARETH M.C. COUGHIN" that's my new favorite

matt

how about "sciborg"?

Sciborg

"sih-borg" still

They all pronounce the same, just with different pitch

matt

5:16 PM

oh

Sciborg

(Star Trek: Bobblie doodle is almost done, too)

matt

yay!

what's the ship called? uss bobblecrown?

Sciborg

It is now

matt

haha

Sciborg

Oh, oops, almost forgot the excessive lens flares

bobble

5:25 PM

we are doing ACTUAL ECON now

Sciborg

Finally :p

here ya go:

2

matt

haha nice

is it (left-to-right): scotty, kirk, mccoy, sulu?

Sciborg

yup

well, actually, spock, but it works either way

matt

oh, oh, right

spock

Sciborg

i couldn't figure out how to give a crown ears

matt

5:34 PM

also i like sulu's excited face

@Sciborg do the pointies on top

Sciborg

Sulu was my favorite TOS character, don't @ me

matt

? sorry

Sciborg

"don't @ me" being slang, sorry

don't disagree with me i should have said

matt

i was worried you didnt like my ping there

1 min ago, by matt

@Sciborg do the pointies on top

Sciborg

sometimes i forget to not use my discord slang in chatroom :p

matt

5:36 PM

:p

Sciborg

can you tell i like doodling

matt

yes

it's awesome

Sciborg

other random doodle from yesterday of the chatroom teaching me grid deductions:

matt

ah nicd

bobble

very nice

matt

5:38 PM

ghghghg typos

Sciborg

i have too many post-it notes on my desk is the real problem

matt

lol

Sciborg

it's just enabling me

i keep wondering how i would draw ankoganit, jafe and avi, given they have pretty abstract avatars

bobble

avi is an ambigram, you can just make a vaguely avi-like ambigram

Sciborg

Can I put cute eyes on it? :p

bobble

5:44 PM

you could put eyes as the i dots, or the A lines

Avi

Kudosu

Sudoku

But also, kudos. Your drawing skills are insane @Sciborg!

Sciborg

thank you, i'm drawing an Avi for you :D

bobble

It looks like Deus is mildly disappointed with your skills

Sciborg

he is?

Avi

hands on the hips of the avatar

Sciborg

5:47 PM

oh, i had meant it as him watching us puzzle solve and enjoying it. he's got a little heart in his thought bubble :p

here is a lil avi friend:

Avi

Ahhhhhh

Just make me a circle ok

o <- like this

matt

a circle?! you're an ambigram!

bobble

... are you supposed to be working, 'borg?

Sciborg

but you're a happy ambigram!

Avi

circles are ambigrammatic from every angle

Sciborg

5:51 PM

(i am waiting on somebody to finish some code before i can work on it, so i'm not working at the moment :p)

i will make you a happy circle instead, hang on

matt

and then what about beastlygerbil?

happy circle?

very happy

is that good avi?

yes

best circle

Sciborg

5:55 PM

yay!

now you have a circle friend

let's see, beastly gerbil... i can just draw a gerbil?

matt

uh yes

Sciborg

gerbil friend?

i'm not good at gerbils

bobble

very cute

is there a reason that you keep adding bobblies to the pictures?

Sciborg

~~they're everywhere~~ no

John Dvorak

Is there a reason you're not adding owls to them? :P

Prince North Læraðr

6:04 PM

@Sciborg I've added two hints for my puzzle

Sciborg

I can draw a Dvorak owl :D

bobble

Stiv solved my second connect-wall really fast

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg Oh God, that's adorable

bobble

I may have overestimated the difficulty of the groups...

Sciborg

Do you want a cute owl or a cool owl?

Birds are my favorite thing to draw so I'm gonna draw the heck out of this

bobble

6:06 PM

@BeastlyGerbil, see Sciborg's drawing of you above

Prince North Læraðr

I love these pictures :P

Sciborg

My work is being held up by a coworker and I have nothing to do, so doodles :p

Beastly Gerbil

@Sciborg how did you find me and why do you have a photo of what I actually look like... O_o

Sciborg

The gerbils told me where you lived

Beastly Gerbil

Drat, I knew I shouldnt have trusted them

Never trust a gerbil

2

Prince North Læraðr

6:10 PM

I don't trust gerbils. Always chew on my bark

Sphinx

0

Q: Double trouble (Python)

Here's a Python program I like to call an Exam Code Generator first_question = input("Input: ") sec_one = ['alpha', 'beta', 'gamma', 'delta', 'epsilon', 'zeta', 'eta', 'kappa', 'lambda', 'sigma', 'omega'] sec_two = ['aiko', 'ena', 'chizu', 'hoshi', 'kaiya', 'maiko', 'sayuri'] sec_three = ['ra', ...

computer-puzzle

bobble

'borg, what does the screen reader think of the starboard?

Sciborg

I have it turned off, hang on

It actually parses that okay, but it doesn't say "star" or anything

bobble

does it tell you how many stars there are?

Sciborg

only if I squint and hover over a very specific spot, then it reads the number

stack chat was definitely not built for it :p

bobble

6:13 PM

something else for your plugin!

Sciborg

Even more plugin stuff!

bobble

random note: this line was my favorite of the flavortext

> Let’s see if your friends can find the patterns, the commonalities, the groups, the… hoo, boy, this stuff is great, y'all!

Sciborg

"Hoo, boy, this stuff is great, y'all" killed me

bobble

and was the reason I decided to go with that specific style

Sciborg

@JohnDvorak i made you an owl:

it does code reviews

bobble

6:17 PM

It does not have a bobbile

Sciborg

dvorak hasn't ~~been taken captive~~ gotten one yet

bobble

Does the screen reader recognize bold, italics, and/or strikethroughs? And how does it read "and/or?"

Sciborg

It doesn't tell me when words in this chat are formatted, it just reads them which is a bummer. And it reads "and/or" as "and slash or" which is pretty funny

bobble

It's not wrong

Sciborg

Not really, it just sounds hilarious out loud

"AND SLASH OR"

It also has a terrible time keeping up with my typing, but I can type without it so that's no big - it's mostly just my reading aid

matt

6:23 PM

how terrible?

Sciborg

"I-T A-LS-O-ODOIEIRIJEIRH CAPSLOCK"

matt

wow

Sciborg

i've been fiddling with the "read as i type" settings though so it is not terrible anymore

you can turn off "speak typed characters"

matt

that might be a good idea

Sciborg

i turned it off, much better :p

bobble, stiv really did solve your wall FAST

matt

6:29 PM

ah yes, stvi

bobble

how far were you?

Sciborg

I had gotten the capital and two-color connections, but then Stiv figured it out and I was like "drat" :p

bobble

any groups you think are especially cool?

Sciborg

The vowel one was really creative

Avi

@Sciborg it's like solosis

Sciborg

6:31 PM

It was a really clever puzzle :)

bobble

I wanted to do "countries with one neighbor", and so I just scrolled through a list of them to see if any had something cool about the name. QATAR was chosen on the basis of "ooh, cool, only one vowel".

Sciborg

They were all really good categories, it wasn't too obscure and I had fun researching to figure it out

A+ connect wall

bobble

Which one did you get first - capital letters, or two-color?

Sciborg

Two-color jumped out at me, I had to Wikipedia dive for the capitals

My geography skills are not great

bobble

How long do you think it would've taken for you to get the one-neighbor and one-vowel groups? And which one was more obscure?

Sciborg

6:36 PM

Probably not too much longer, I think I was close to realizing the one-neighbor since I was looking at where each country was on a map. The one-vowel group would then have been obvious

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg You should change it to "it's spelled 'you' not 'u'"

Sciborg

?

Prince North Læraðr

That's John's catch phrase

Sciborg

Ah, I was looking at his JavaScript posts :p

Prince North Læraðr

Aug 11 at 13:54, by John Dvorak

Pro-tip: "u" isn't a word

Sciborg

6:38 PM

That is a very John thing to say

Prince North Læraðr

That is the most John thing to say :P

Sciborg

(I would probably not have figured out the title clue on the wall @bobble, I went like "ohh" when Stiv got it :p)

Prince North Læraðr

Jun 1 '19 at 13:37, by John Dvorak

English, please. "u", "r" aren't words.

bobble

The title clue was both to have a little cryptic fun, and to justify the flavortext

Sciborg

Poor K.G.

Somebody gave them a little too much Adderall

bobble

6:41 PM

*them

Sciborg

ahh sorry!

look at my dumb ass forgetting my own pronoun

bobble

Nov 4 at 5:37, by Sciborg

No one knocks off the nonbinary Knockoff Gladys on my watch

Sciborg

I still stand by that joke

bobble

Knockoff Gladys is also a parent, which I learned from North's puzzle :)

Sciborg

:D

Prince North Læraðr

6:43 PM

@bobble The lore expands

Sciborg

I love that we now have deep lore for Knockoff Gladys, bobblecrowns, and a moderator boss fight game

bobble

@bobble , what if the only person who has answered the question is ready to include the answer to the second question in his answer ? The second question is is what if there are 100 people who can each open 2 boxes . I wish to keep all the question answers at one place for future readers . This is also because the second question is just a small extension of the first question. — Hemant Agarwal 45 secs ago

help!

Sciborg

to confirm the situation: they posted a puzzle, someone answered, then they added a new part to the puzzle for the answerer to answer?

that's kinda... not kosher

bobble

and also attempted to edit the answer to say it only answered the first question

Sciborg

it would be like if i had checked somebody's answer, then added a bunch of new stuff to the puzzle and unchecked them and went like "okay now solve this"

that's not really how it's supposed to work and is mean to answerer

bobble

6:48 PM

it reminds me of this

562

Q: Exit strategies for "chameleon questions"

I'm not sure if there's already an existing term for this, so I'm inventing my own. (tl;dr: I call them "chameleon questions" because they change every time you submit or edit an answer. If you're already intimately familiar with the phenomenon, please skip past the first set of bullet points to...

discussion questions new-users new-questions multiple-questions

which I didn't think would ever happen on Puzzling

Sciborg

yup

"chameleon puzzle"

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble Just tell them that's not our policy here

It's not about what they want, it's what the community wants

Ppl treat PSE like "Oh, the site doesn't let me do whatever the f I want, it's a bad site

bobble

I'm not sure how to phrase it nicely

Sciborg

"It's not Puzzling SE policy to allow for major revisions to a question after it's already been answered."

You don't have to explain any further

bobble

> It is Puzzling.SE's policy that questions should not be majorly changed after they are answered. It is also our policy that there shouldn't be multiple questions in the same post. Adding a new question after a good answer has already been given violates both of these policies. It doesn't matter that the question is related. You can, again, simply ask a new question.

feedback?

Sciborg

6:54 PM

That's good.

bobble

being Prolific Comment Person to help with moderation tasks also means I get a not-insignificant amount of blowback and angry counter-comments

Sciborg

If you get tired of it or are being attacked a lot on a given post, you can ask a mod to help out

Deus is good at the Mod Hammering

bobble

It usually doesn't go on for too long, and I can always ping Deus in here

I've surpassed North in rep! O_O Did not expect that.

(he's been my measuring stick for a while)

Sciborg

The logical solution is that you have to fight to the death

bobble

ah, but the bobblie on top of him will help me

Also, you should check his profile. He quoted you!

Sciborg

7:02 PM

Awww! :D

I'm glad that the ass-kicking comment endures eternal

matt

today's fun fact: I'm not a goat

Sciborg

I tried another shot at North's connect wall but even with the hints, I'm still stuck on the other three groups :(

Sciborg

7:14 PM

screen reader interpreted that as "mebby" and i can't stop laughing

Avi

:3

bobble

why are there 3 deleted messages?

Avi

The first two were (intentional) bad grammar

Sciborg

Attempted murder of John

Avi

The third was John getting a stroke

bobble

7:17 PM

AH IN TWO DAYS I HAVE COLLEGE INTERVIEW

Avi

congrats

bobble

I randomly remembered and I'm panicking all over again

Sciborg

Dang!! Nice!!

HTM

@bobble Cool! Which one?

Avi

remember to write down a bunch of questions, memorize the answer for each one, and in general be overprepared :3

bobble

7:18 PM

My reach college - very hard to get into and very expensive

HTM

Ah, the illusive "reach"

Sciborg

Good luck at the interview! You will do great :)

HTM

Been a long time since I've heard that term used

Sciborg

(illusive or elusive?)

(or both, maybe)

bobble

panic panic panic

Avi

7:19 PM

@Sciborg yes

HTM

@Sciborg Shh its fine, I'm just a bit wierd is all

Avi

@bobble here's an illusory soda

Sciborg

Do a tetro-nurikabe Bobble, a brain-stim will help

bobble

I don't like soda (or anything fizzy)

HTM

@bobble If it helps, I would approach this interview as simply a casual conversation. It's a "reach" school for a reason - best case would be you get in, but even if you don't, you probably have other options lined up

bobble

7:22 PM

Yes, logical me is attempting to use that argument. Sadly the rest of my brain is still PANICKING PANICKING PANICKING

Sciborg

Nurikabes, do some nurikabes

Avi

Me: Time spent panicking is better spent preparing
Brain: *wastes even more time being worried*

HTM

@bobble I get it, I got super nervous for my MIT interview too

bobble

(I also have a presentation to give soon, which is logically the more panic-inducing thing since it's coming up first)

HTM

@bobble Yeah, probably wanna focus on that first, hopefully doing that will release most of the stress

Avi

7:25 PM

gotta run, gl folks

Sciborg

seeya circle :p

matt

"logically"
"panic-inducing"
hm

bobble

7:44 PM

@Sciborg I am doing nurikabes

Deusovi

@Sciborg absolutely love the art you share here!

it's really cute

bobble

I think you look disappointed, they think you are enjoying watching us solve puzzles

matt

hm

(oh also @deusovi i noticed a typo in your profile)

> lingust

Deusovi

whoops, thanks

matt

:)

how is your mod hammer doing?

bobble

7:58 PM

@Deusovi do you have any suggestions for stuff to add to this meta answer (responding to the guy who was trouble with English)

Deusovi

took a brief look and your answer seemed pretty comprehensive - i might also note that mathjax also takes longer to load, but you pretty much covered things?

bobble

okay, good :)

matt

8:13 PM

ah hello there xnor

Mithical

8:58 PM

@bobble same

bobble

yay! I found someone else who doesn't love all fizzy drinks!

(I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one)

matt

you can count me in as well

bobble

I have a problem. The problem is that I have homework, but I want to keep working on my Tetromino Nurikabe. Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

matt

do them both

or "multitask"

also, ALL THE SQUARES = QUASAR HELL SET = QATAR EEL SLUSH

Avi

9:32 PM

Did you know - the word "wolfish", which likens something to a wolf, contains the word "fish"?

bobble

> ACPHS Has Plans For You

I'm fairly certain this college email wasn't intended to be creepy, but it totally ended up being that way

@Avi yes

hi friends

hey voldy!!

'sup?

9:37 PM

points upwards

y'got any up dog?

what

y'got any updog?

what

ya got any updog??

9:39 PM

what does that mean

Voldemort's Wrath

you're supposed to say "what's updog?"

say it

Gareth McCaughan

sorry, but you don't get to blame someone else for the fact that your joke assumes they'll do a specific thing there's no reason why they should do :-)

matt

(gap thuds ow)*

Voldemort's Wrath

@GarethMcCaughan and...?

Gareth McCaughan

(no idea how to respond to that)

Voldemort's Wrath

9:42 PM

there's no blame involved i'm simply saying that was the expected response for the joke to work. what's the reason for that message?

Gareth McCaughan

"you're supposed to say ..."

= "you didn't do what you were supposed to"

= "you did the wrong thing"

Voldemort's Wrath

what would you have said? sorry I'm not seeing any problem with this

Gareth McCaughan

I'd have just accepted that the joke wasn't going to work

bobble

I would like to agree with Gareth here

Gareth McCaughan

(and maybe explained what I'd been hoping for)

matt

9:43 PM

yes

Avi

and even if somebody does say

Gareth McCaughan

[afk for a minute or two; if someone expects a response and doesn't get it it's not because I'm being rude]

Avi

"What's up dawg"

that doesn't necessarily incite humor

Voldemort's Wrath

whatever

Avi

precisely

what do you call the value that results when you multiply all input neuron activations by their weights in a NN?

I was going to call it "inputs" but then I realized that I already called the input neurons "inputs"

"input", I suppose

the real puzzles in life D:

Prince North Læraðr

9:56 PM

@bobble What?! Hmph

bobble

If it makes you feel better, you're still far ahead of me on Lit

Prince North Læraðr

rolls eyes :P

Congrats!

bobble

I just noticed that Lit-you lives in Estenzia

Prince North Læraðr

Yes

Only in Lit World

matt

warp engine sounds

Avi

10:08 PM

disgust is surround by dust, ends with gust...

matt

yes that is true

Prince North Læraðr

"dust is in disgust"

oh, left with g

Darn

bobble

> Tetrikabe: Socially Distanced Fours

(title of next puzzle)

Prince North Læraðr

Hm, I'm not sure if I should give more hints for the connect-wall

Huh, that's annoying

Switzerland's wikipedia page seems to have been modified, now the little box with some quick facts about the country is gone

Yeah, the infobox for some reason isn't showing up on my laptop

Switzerland

{{Infobox country |conventional_long_name = Swiss Confederation |common_name = Switzerland |native_name = {{ubl|Schweizerische EidgenossenschaftConfédération suisse (French)Confederazione Svizzera (Italian)Confederaziun svizra (Romansh) (German) Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated at the confluence of Western, Central, and Southern Europe. It is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. Switzerland is a landlocked country bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and L...

^Working for anyone else? It's kind of important for my puzzle

bobble

10:23 PM

not for me either

I do see "infobox" in the oneboxed text, so that's weird

Prince North Læraðr

That's really annoying, because that info box on the side was essential for Switzerland, unless you're somehow a geek about Switzerland and great at geography

bobble

@Sciborg, ping me when you get in so I can post the Tetrikabe then. Maybe you'll solve it first this time!

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg Updated hints, if you want one last crack at it

bobble

10:57 PM

Quick question: for a puzzle from an ongoing contest, do you use the "proper attribution" reason or a custom one?

I guess this puzzle is from an ongoing contest, it's from an integirls puzzle competition. Although it is not full direct , but the puzzle breaks down to this riddle . I request the moderators to delete this question . — Sunaina Pati 19 hours ago

(pinging @Deusovi since you're a mod)

Gareth McCaughan

11:12 PM

When we merely suspect that something might be from a competition, we usually use the proper-attribution reason; then if the puzzle turns out to be from a competition we can leave it closed and explain why, and if not no harm has been done.

bobble

got it, thanks!

Gareth McCaughan

I don't remember what the usual thing is when something is known to be from a competition; probably a custom reason, since the usual ones don't cover that case.

Of course in this instance we have only the assertion that the puzzle is from a competition -- but I bet the assertion is true, and I suspected some sort of foul play from the outset, because > 95% of the time when someone says "my friend sent me this puzzle" they mean "for some reason solving this puzzle will benefit me and I want to cheat".

The wording of the "proper attribution" reason is actually not too bad for ongoing competitions, at least where the poster hasn't already admitted where the puzzle comes from. I think I'll use that one here.

oAlt

@PrinceNorthLæraðr (late to the discussion but) yeahhhh... That lacks affirmation

bobble

11:55 PM

Look at the tiny little red line of Lit rep! It's so cute :D

matt

how'd you get that graph?

bobble

Network profile's reputation tab

matt

ah i see

it seems my puzzling rep increased by 154 one day
and that my code-golf and puzzling reps are 1 apart

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