The Sphinx's Lair

12:05 AM

@GarethMcCaughan (or pi :P )

12:57 AM

CCCC: Rock group publicly disparages people from Miami and other parts of the Sunshine State (13)

Dmihawk

rofl for some reason my brain's immediate reaction was to picture a rock band called the "Midiflorians" who only play Star Wars parodies >_<

hah

Prince North Læraðr

1:26 AM

I feel like the answer might be HEARTBREAKERS, particularly because that was one of the only 13 letter rock band groups I could find. Oh, unless ROCK is the def

But HEARTBREAKERS interestingly has HEART, which has the word HEAT, which is a potential substring of "people from Miami" (Miami Heat?)

Hm, maybe it's "people from Miami and other parts of the Sunshine State"? FLORIDIAN is only 9 letters though

Hm, "The Sunshine State" might be a red herring. Why write "the Sunshine State" rather than Florida?

If STATE is the def, MASSACHUSETTS is 13 letters long

What can "parts of" indicate usually in CCs?

MASS is a rock band, but it's such a common word that I would be shocked if it wasn't a rock band name

1 hour later…

Gareth McCaughan

2:41 AM

My immediate guess was that the def is "rock group" but it means not a small number of people who get together to play rock music, but a category of rocks found in the ground. Something like SEDIMENTARY (although obviously not that since it's only 11 letters long). But I don't give that more than say a 20% chance of being right.

Ankoganit

3:22 AM

MOUNT RUSHMORE is a 'rock group' with 13 letters; doesn't fit the enumeration, sadly

2 hours later…

Graylocke

5:50 AM

@GarethMcCaughan This was my thought too, but none of them are long enough. METAMORPHIC was also only 11.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

6:33 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr I like this, because "parts of the Sunshine" could clue the final TS. But I don't see how the rest of it can work.

Graylocke

@msh210 ET is "and" but there is a long way to go ;p

Graylocke

6:48 AM

@Stiv I didn't know you weren't sure who to give it your checkmark to when I commented before. But imho I think the one to make sense of the half answers deserves the award :)

3 hours later…

9:56 AM

Disparages is probably an anagram indicator

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica It could be. Then we'd need to be anagramming PEOPLE.

I was thinking "publicly" could be a homophony indicator. (MASSACHUSETTS has ~"chews" in it, which almost means "disparages". Even so, I don't see how the rest could work.)

Maybe there's a rock group whose name means "publicly disparages people from Miami and other parts of the Sunshine State". :-)

10:32 AM

i wonder if there's a Moonshine State

1 hour later…

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

11:46 AM

maybe something along the lines of what Ankoganit said, but just "rock", like Ayers Rock. unfortunately that's the only one that's survived up till now in my head knowledge, and i don't know any other famous rocks/rock formations, let alone 11-letter long ones

or maybe it could have been used for the slang form of "gem"/"gemstone"?

@oAlt What mountain range has 13 letters? (Because I think rock group could be some kind of mountain range like Anko, but maybe in the lines of Gareth

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

(oh frick, i meant 13 when i typed 11 oops)

i don't know any either, unfortunately

12:01 PM

@oAlt Oof, I just realised

@Jafe are any of our ideas correct?

no comment

@oAlt Ford?

@Jafe I've got that moonshine in my pocket, got that good stuff in my flask, feel that hot blood in my body when it drops, ooh.

apparently there's an old prospector named william ford who found gold in australia way back when

which means the list of notable fords includes william, henry, harrison

@Jafe Harrison Ford and Arthur Kennedy are two big actors whose first and last names are U.S. presidents' last names.

Surely that fact can be worked into a puzzle of some sort somehow.

-4

Q: help me please it urgent

TUQZ9TXL/MLJPDERSOIB6LQ4RVFC30OUALHRKFPKUOQH5O03TPCE5AEQ3M8J9UHMGY9OMDWNHEGLWIA9EHUXC7UI0B39RVXWBRCJYHEPGALTIGCWNIDEXPZZLZA/GS+YJUQ6BRWXSAROZ9ZFSGSNZEUMQCNGDZDWSECLRJJMROMKAEQDWFXCSMNWLHUPDKGZSGZLKIL/IHYBGPMPFCWDK6RKJ7VFRRDOPZ6HYGF1P+I9BRGHTG4WYSMA+D8CN2GQVJ0+U+XYQQNJ2YTO+FS/IWKSNGRWPR+CA18LP1ZWM...

cipher

12:16 PM

-4 before the Sphinx got to it.

i was like "there's a president ford?" for a minute there

You're excused, as a Finn-Australian.

naming finnish presidents is easier, there have only been like... 14?

12, actually... so apparently not that easy

:-)

Ford was pretty recent. Americans would say "there was a President Arthur?"

hehe

12:22 PM

> In November 2014, Henry L. Roediger III and K. Andrew DeSoto published a study in the journal Science asking research subjects to name as many presidents as possible. They reported data from three generations as well as from an online survey conducted in 2014. The percentage of participants in the online survey sample who could name each president was the following:

Arthur ranks last, i.e. least memorable.

(source)

the presidents quiz on JetPunk has arthur correctly guessed 47% of the time... he's tied for last place with pierce and hayes

i only remember him because of the how i met your mother episode where one guy grew sideburns and the others called him "our [number]th president chester a. arthur"

In any event, none of this chitchat is helping us with the important task of solving the C4. Or is it?

12:59 PM

@msh210 ?

@msh210 heheh

Q: A long, almost for physics riddle

I came up with this riddle today: My Whole is of 2 terms. My Prefix is 3 Letters. Term 1 is half open. But Term 2 is mostly locked. My Prefix is an ex. My Suffix is a passage. My infix is a symbol, Mostly known as 3210. Feedback is appreciated.

riddle word wordplay affix-riddle

1:16 PM

@oAlt the guy from the previous C4

You said "frick".

1:34 PM

Oh, right

i dont know why i easily forgot but thats that

2:02 PM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica "Rock" or "group" could be, too.

Jan 4 at 15:11, by msh210

@LukasRotter Leur's rule: For every word, there's at least one person who considers it an anagram indicator.

4 hours later…

Q: You are stuck in a room with only three doors you have to get out of there

6:03 PM

-2

You are stuck in a room with only three doors you have to get out of there Behind the first door there is a killer joker Behind the second door there are three lions who haven't eaten anything from the last three months And Behind the last door there is a rouge ninja and he will kill anyone he se...

riddle

1 hour later…

Q: Why is “AFTS” the solution to the crossword clue "Times before eves, in ads"?

7:18 PM

I was doing a crossword from the NY Times (from Mon, Feb 11, 2019 by Portia Lundie / Will Shortz) and I got the following clue. 51 ACROSS - Times before eves, in ads The answer is "AFTS". However, I do not understand why and how "AFTS" fits the clue. Why is the answer "AFTS" and how does the cl...

crossword-clues explanation

logical-deduction knowledge enigmatic-puzzle

8:07 PM

Q: Bar trivia is heating up

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #49: Pub Quiz Camouflage Last week I popped into my local bar, Staggers, on Tuesday night with my work colleagues to have a few well drinks and jalapeño poppers, and kick some tail at bar trivia. Somewhat to my surprise, the bartender Sam had put up a huge...

3 hours later…