lat-puzz.com

by **GalFisk** » Mon Dec 06, 2021 4:16 pm

I'm happy that the LTPF is back! I've spent the downtime on the OEDILF, and on moving closer to work, but there was still a puzzle piece missing in my world.

by **H0bbsicle** » Tue Dec 07, 2021 8:24 pm

Hey Galfisk, good to see you! Others of us have had trouble logging in with our old usernames, so I had to create a new account. Did you do anything special, or did it just work for you?

by **WiZ** » Tue Dec 07, 2021 8:48 pm

SIMPLY A TEST
BETTER THAN ALL THE REST

(Also, GalFisk, my brain parsed that as 'Oxford English Dictionary I'd Like To F***') a phrase I'm sure Suzie Dent has used at least once.

by **trebor2** » Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:06 am

Hello everyone, and glad to be back! (Although I had to re-register, so it's now trebor2. Hopefully this version is new and improved.) Futility Closet announced to its Patreon subscribers that it would be winding down the same week, I think, that all of a sudden the LTPF was gone, and I must admit that I had a bit of a breakdown in my car over the loss of the lateral puzzle loving community. I'm glad we're up and running again.

If anyone is in a position to answer, what happened?

by **BitterLemonCurry** » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:49 am

Glad to be back! I also needed to create a new account, and took the opportunity to change my username to my current "standard".
(In most communities, there is already a LemonCurry before I register)

Happy puzzling!

by **Braindrop** » Thu Dec 09, 2021 5:36 pm

My H0bbsicle username hurt my eyes, and is a little clumsy to type on mobile. I couldn’t think of a similar alternative that I liked, so I decided to start over. Is it a shameless plug for a podcast I haven’t updated in over a year? Maybe.

by **Sundowner64** » Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:19 pm

Good to be back to this place, finally, and to see one after the other of you returning. Also I had to sign up once again but now it works. (and no, the 64 is neither my year of birth nor my age

by **Sundowner64** » Fri Dec 10, 2021 10:12 am

And thanks to Paul for restoring our LTPF.

By the way is there a way to retrieve the archive of the very old (before 2015) LTPF? Or are woubit's legend Christmas puzzles now gone forever?

by **Sundowner64** » Sat Dec 11, 2021 3:47 pm

We have now 3047 members in our beloved forum. 99% of them are spam bots. If someone would give me admin rights, I would volunteer to delete them.

by **Traveller** » Sun Dec 12, 2021 12:19 pm

What are OOATP rules?

by **WiZ** » Sun Dec 12, 2021 7:48 pm

The One-At-A-Time-Please (OAATP) rules are as follows (and should really be written down somewhere rather than just having the original puzzle linked, since the url is now defunct):

You may only ask one question at a time.
You may ask questions consecutively, but only after I have answered your first one (i.e. You may immediately ask another question after I respond, whether or not you were the last person to ask).
You are allowed to ask about multiple variables, provided the overall question is the same (e.g. You may still ask Person=HAM? and I will answer all components of that individually. You may also ask Was Dave Steve's father? uncle? brother? lover? orthodontist? cat? and I will do the same.
In that spirit, you are allowed to invoke LTPF lists of things, whether or not they will help you at all
Caveat Earlispoilor is still in effect (i.e. please respect the convention to private message the answer if you feel you have an advantage).

by **doriana_** » Sun Dec 12, 2021 10:32 pm

Glad to see the forum is back up, even though I also had to re-register under a slightly different username

by **Traveller** » Mon Dec 13, 2021 12:22 pm

Thanks. That was informative.

by **Admin** » Mon Dec 13, 2021 3:24 pm

Sundowner64

Congratulations

You are now promoted to global moderator. Please clean up as needed.

thanks

Paul

by **Sundowner64** » Mon Dec 13, 2021 5:15 pm

Thanks a lot, but unfortunately it does not help. Apparently, as a moderator I can only ban users but not delete them. (There is probably no point in banning spam bots.)

by **WiZ** » Tue Dec 14, 2021 1:59 am

Curious to see that I survived the 2021 rebirth but the Skeleton didn't. I suppose that's appropriate.

As a gamebook enthusiast, I'm not big on undead puzzle solving, but I have fewer issues with the undead solving puzzles.

by **Bardificer** » Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:37 pm

Yay, creating a new username worked for me as well. I am she who was IrishElk, having grown weary of that moniker as I abandoned Gourami before it.

And rest in pieces to our skeletal friend. Perhaps he will resurrect again, although I suppose I should have chosen a necromancer class instead for that...

by **WiZ** » Tue Dec 21, 2021 7:50 pm

I feel that with the correction of the spelling of 'puzzles' in the forum subtitel, we've lost a part of our culture.

by **Sundowner64** » Wed Dec 22, 2021 9:54 am

To be honest, I don't even remember what the old subtitle was.

by **WiZ** » Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:00 pm

Identical except for puzzles being spelled puzzels

Hence all those archived 'Puzzel of the Year' threads.

by **Sundowner64** » Thu Dec 23, 2021 10:07 am

We may ask Paul to change it back ...

by **Admin** » Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:31 pm

Sounds like a lateral puzzle but it isn't quite.

Why are all Swedish Cottages Red?

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why- ... obal-en-GB

by **GalFisk** » Sat Dec 25, 2021 9:06 pm

Admin wrote:Sounds like a lateral puzzle but it isn't quite.

Why are all Swedish Cottages Red?

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why- ... obal-en-GB

That's a nice article. I live not too far from Falun, and will visit the mine some day. Last year, we repainted the clubhouse at the skydiving club with Falu rödfärg.

by **doriana_** » Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:09 pm

Happy new year, everyone! May 2022 treat you well!

by **Sundowner64** » Mon Jan 03, 2022 9:27 am

Happy New Year!

by **WiZ** » Wed Jan 12, 2022 12:00 am

Tau hou hari! Happy new year to you all. May 2022 be less terrible than 2021. New Zealand hasn't had a community Omicron case yet, so I won't tantalise myself with that possibility.

Delighted to see the return of the Puzzel of the Year thread. Please do give 2021's entries your consideration, if you haven't already. There are fewer than usual to choose from this time around, which should make the task a little easier. Still plenty of good'uns.

by **doriana_** » Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:23 am

I accidentally posted a new puzzle in the solved section. Could a mod please move it to the active puzzles section? Thanks!

by **Sundowner64** » Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:53 am

Done.

by **Vethica** » Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:44 am

Hey guys! Long time lurker (don't ask me how long... years), first time poster. Call me Veth. I may or may not continue lurking and not actually trying to solve puzzles, but now I'll be lurking with a username attached. Nice to meet you!

I just wanted to mention that when the original site went down, it was very difficult to track down the new URL. lateralpuzzles.com (now a dead page) doesn't redirect, and the relevant page on Paul Sloane's site (here) still links to the old, dead site. I had to find the new one through a random post on Mr. Sloane's twitter. I don't know if he reads this thread, but if not, maybe someone could let him know.

Thanks so much! Looking forward to my time here.

by **Vethica** » Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:45 am

Whoops, double post.

by **Sundowner64** » Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:05 am

Welcome, Veth!

by **WiZ** » Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:36 pm

Hi, Veth! Any relation to 'Vesica', who used to haunt our forums back around the turn of the millennium?

Welcome, either way.

by **Sundowner64** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:54 am

Reminder: Don't forget to nominate your favourites for the 2020 Puzzel of the Year.

by **Vethica** » Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:56 pm

WiZ wrote:Hi, Veth! Any relation to 'Vesica', who used to haunt our forums back around the turn of the millennium?

Welcome, either way.

Hi WiZ! I'm feeling very "senpai noticed me" over here - your puzzles are always my favorites. c: I am unfortunately not related to Vesica, though clearly we're both members of the -ica clan. I'll have to keep an eye out for them at the next family reunion.

by **WiZ** » Fri Jan 28, 2022 12:01 am

Thank you for the compliment. I'm glad you enjoy my puzzles - I'm an instructional designer (among other things) and devising puzzles is almost work experience. Not close enough, according to my performance review, but I did try.

by **trebor2** » Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:07 pm

Hi Veth!

I also found it difficult to track this new site down. I happened to stumble upon a post about it from Paul on a Facebook group. I've noticed that a lot of members from the last site haven't posted here yet, even though they were frequent contributers before. I'm wondering if it's been communicated to them that this site is up and running, as I certainly didn't see an email or dm about it. Is there a mod or someone who has access to contact info so we could be sure people know?

I did set it up to filter emails from the forum to my junk folder just because they were all replies to puzzles, and I was checking the site anyway, but maybe there's a way to filter those from messages from mods or for forum admin stuff? I double-checked my junk folders for any missed emails about what was happening when the forum was in limbo, and I didn't see anything.

by **Sundowner64** » Mon Feb 14, 2022 6:20 pm

Oh yes, trebor2, this is a good idea. I'll try to send private messages to some of the old hands, hoping that their reference e-mail has been taken over to the new forum. Hopefully, it gets through to them and does not end up in a spam filter. Thanks for bringing me to that.
(BTW: you can switch off notifications for replies to puzzles: Go to User Control Panel > Board Preferences > Edit Posting Defaults > Notify me upon replies by default: No -- then you will get only notifications for private messages and it should be easier to locate them in your folder)

by **Sundowner64** » Tue Feb 15, 2022 5:17 pm

As I have seen some of the old hands had visited this forum after its rebirth but not yet posted anything, here again the notice:

If posting with your old handle does not work (this might happen), then please sign up once again with a different name. Then everything should work fine.

by **jmorahan** » Tue Feb 15, 2022 7:18 pm

Just got the PM, thanks! I had no idea the LTPF was back

(had to change my name, I was wunderland, but this is the name I use elsewhere)

by **Sundowner64** » Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:26 am

Welcome back, jmorahan!

by **JenBurdoo1** » Wed Feb 16, 2022 2:52 am

Ah, that worked.

I'm glad to see the forum is back up... again! I've missed it. Oh, and honored to have been nominated for so many puzzles this year...!

Here's to more puzzling. I'm Teen Librarian again so will be able to spend more time in the tech lab confusing the kids with these.

by **Bardificer** » Sun Feb 20, 2022 8:34 pm

Sorry for a bit of an absence, I'm still here and about to answer all my pending questions.

Welcome, Veth! You have correctly identified the senpai of the forum. Jump on in and ask some questions!

I feel like newcomers/lurkers often have the best single-post solving luck.

And Hobbs, so happy to hear a new podcast episode (Brain)drop! The voice talents you hired for this one were great, and adorable.

by **gendervoid_killua** » Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:19 am

Hi all! Just made a new account after getting an email about the site being back up. I was on the old forum as kyeannpepper, and (extremely briefly) more recently as raevenclaw. Hoping to stay a bit more active on the site now that I’ve got a new job that takes up less mental energy, as I have a lot of very fond memories of this forum!

by **lynne1** » Tue Feb 22, 2022 10:37 am

Hi, not sure how active I'll be, but just wanted to thank Paul for his hard work in getting this forum up and running.

Don't forget that today is 22 02 2022 or 02 22 2022. Either way, it's Twos Day, as in Monday, Twos Day, a special day in the life of the universe!

by **Sundowner64** » Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:33 pm

Lynne is back! Welcome!

by **lynne1** » Tue Feb 22, 2022 5:25 pm

Thank you Sundowner. I did have a notification that there was a message from you but I was never able to access it, and even after changing my user name it seems to have disappeared.

by **trebor2** » Wed Feb 23, 2022 3:38 am

Good to see a couple more faces coming back.

by **Braindrop** » Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:55 am

Glad to see all of you return.

Bardificer: Thanks! Glad to give it another round, and yes, the actors had a lot of fun with it, and were paid handsomely in ice cream.

Last call for voting your top three for puzzle of the year. I let it go longer than planned, but we've all been moving a little slow, it seems. So jump on it!

by **Earnestnew** » Sat Feb 26, 2022 9:59 am

Hi all guys!!!
Earnest is back. Sorry for the delay but had to complete my Ph.D.! How are you?

Would like to express all my solidarity to Ukrainian people here in the group if any

by **Sundowner64** » Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:05 am

Welcome back, Earnest. Enjoy puzzling.
By the way: there is still one of your puzzles resting in the limbo since June.

by **trebor2** » Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:55 pm

Good to see you back, Earnest. I hope your studies went well.

Standing with you and others in solidarity with Ukraine as well.

by **doriana_** » Thu Mar 03, 2022 1:52 pm

Welcome back, Lynn and Earnest!

by **Zanre0** » Mon Mar 14, 2022 9:41 pm

I'm back too! Saw the forums were down a while back when trying to access the regular link, then when later googling "lateral puzzles forum" I found this link in a Facebook post.

Seems my old account still exists, but trying to log in just gave me an error, so I'll be using this new one for now I guess

by **doriana_** » Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:01 pm

As LTPF tradition requires, I hereby inform you that it's my birthday today - the big 3-0! When I joined the forum back in 2010, I was a teen in my first year of college. Here I am, more than a decade later, still setting and solving puzzles.

by **GalFisk** » Wed Mar 16, 2022 9:18 am

Congrats!

by **JenBurdoo1** » Sat Mar 19, 2022 3:21 am

Happy Birthday, Doriana! Just turned 45 myself.

by **Sarisberie** » Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:42 pm

I was wondering... Can we access any solved puzzles from the old site please?

by **Admin** » Wed Mar 23, 2022 11:52 am

I am not sure how we could access old puzzles from the previous site. Will look into it.

by **Zan** » Wed Mar 23, 2022 11:53 am

...So, it's me, Zanreo, again, posting from another new account because I got locked out from my "Zanre0" one thanks to a bug (which actually seems to be the same affecting my old "Zanreo" account, when trying to log in to that again I realized it had the same message...) I sent a mail to the lateralpuzzles.com mail address, but not sure it got read considering my forum posts got approved but this never got a reply, and since I can't PM from an unactivated account and don't have the mods' mail addresses I might as well just post it here.

Specifically, the issue seems to be using the "Metro Teal" forum theme, which seems to either be broken or just not exist for the new forum. When looking through the forum settings, I saw an option to change themes, and switched from the default prosilver to Metro Teal just to see what it looked like. However, changing this just threw an error message at me, and there was no way to switch the theme back - when returning to the site I'd just be logged out, getting hit with the same "Template path could not be found: styles/metro_teal/template" error message whenever I tried to log back in. (Makes me wonder if this is also the issue with other people's old accounts?) So to any mods/admins, would it be possible to go into the profile of my Zanreo and Zanre0 accounts and change the theme I'm using back to prosilver (probably just gonna go back to using the old account)?

And yeah, consider this a PSA to not change the forum theme for now

by **Admin** » Wed Mar 23, 2022 11:55 am

Sarisberie,

The Solved Puzzles section has 19 pages going back to 2014. I do not think we can retreive aanything earlier.

by **Zan** » Wed Mar 23, 2022 12:09 pm

(wait, did my previous post just disappear after editing?)

by **Sarisberie** » Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:52 pm

Thanks. I wanted to have a ganders at a couple of my old puzzles (2018 and 2019), but the title links don't link.

by **Sundowner64** » Thu Mar 24, 2022 8:04 pm

Which are these puzzles? Normally, the links should work. If you give me the puzzle titles, I can have a look.

By the way, pre-2014 puzzles are still available through the Internet Wayback Machine > https://web.archive.org/web/20150107195705/http://www.lateralpuzzles.com:80/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi

by **Sundowner64** » Thu Mar 24, 2022 8:06 pm

Zan wrote:(wait, did my previous post just disappear after editing?)

No, it did not. It just needed to get approved by a mod, as it was the first puzzle of your new handle.

About the theme change: I noticed that as well. Definitely a good idea not to change the theme for the moment. Thanks for pointing out.

by **Enjay** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 11:08 pm

Hi all - I'm a little late to the party but just discovered the new forum, and my old username even seems to work!

by **Sundowner64** » Wed Apr 06, 2022 6:30 pm

Great! Welcome back, Enjay!

by **trebor2** » Sat Apr 30, 2022 6:42 am

Happy almost-May, everyone! (At least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, that should be a good thing.)

I am consistently amazed by Mother Nature and the wonders of our planet. I live in Saskatchewan (western Canadian province), and the city I live in had temperatures around 16 degrees Celsius over the Easter break/spring week off/whatever-you-want-to-call it. 250 km to the southeast, highways were shut down because of a days-long blizzard which got the snow up to my mom's knees/thigh. She is rather short, but still! Scuttled travel plans to visit my parents and my sister-in-law, that's for sure.

I hope you all are keeping well and safe.

by **Sundowner64** » Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:37 am

Yes, snow in April is not uncommon in Central Europe either, and we had it as well in Germany. But now, nature is in spring mode irreversibly, the trees are in full blossom and flowers are coming up in the meadows. May ahead.

BTW: Welcome back, Geeky_Girl. Sorry for not approving your post in the Evil One puzzle, I just did not notice. Rectified, and thank you for reviving the puzzle.

by **Sarisberie** » Sun May 01, 2022 9:02 pm

Is it OK to bump someone's puzzle, or is it the height of bad manners?

by **Sundowner64** » Mon May 02, 2022 8:41 am

Well, if there's already a lot of unanswered questions in a puzzle we'll have to wait until the host comes back. Adding more questions will not bring the puzzle closer to solution. On the other hand, if there's a puzzle sitting at the end of the list with all questions answered, you're of course encouraged to ask new questions to get this puzzle back to live. Maybe the host is just waiting for that.
If you're hosting a puzzle yourself that has become stale, you may bring it back to attention by posting a recap or hint.
If you think you know the solution already early in the puzzle you may ask the puzzle host via PM before you post it. However, the rule is, unless the host has marked the puzzle as "caveat earlysp*ler" you're free to fire at any stage.

by **trebor2** » Tue May 10, 2022 5:34 am

It seems that a lot of people still haven't found this new site. Is there anything else we can do to let them know and bring in new members?

I am particularly missing Klondike Mary, but I've noticed a lot haven't returned since whatever it was happened. I hate to see so little activity.

by **Sundowner64** » Thu May 12, 2022 10:33 am

I'm afraid the only thing we can do is to sent a PM to the people, hoping that they've set up an e-mail notification and get the message forwarded. I did so several times and it worked for a few people. Also Paul is sending e-mails from time to time to the e-mail addresses he has available.
Apart from that we can only use and advertise this forum to push it higher in the search engines. (if you're running a blog or web site, please consider advertising the forum there as well)
As for Klondike Mary, she has found the new forum already. She was logged on here in the new forum in December. So I guess that she just for some reason decided not to be active here for a while. (you may try to contact her via PM)

by **Sarisberie** » Sun May 15, 2022 1:01 am

What DID happen to the old forum?

by **Sundowner64** » Mon May 16, 2022 8:16 am

There were some issues with the hosting provider. I don't exactly know the details, but in the effect Paul decided to move the forum to a new provider.
Paul moved the whole content of the forum (since 2015) here but not the very old forum (pre-2015). Still the very old forum is accessible via Wayback Machine.

by **Puzzlecat** » Mon May 23, 2022 1:02 am

Hi, user previously called AlbatrossLover here. I had kinda become inactive before the old URL died but I'm glad these forums are still around!

by **Sundowner64** » Mon May 30, 2022 10:39 am

Welcome, Puzzlecat. Have fun.

by **Sundowner64** » Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:25 am

The LPTF is again being flooded by spammers. Could someone of the Admins please delete all these ~50 new signups since July 14?
(I disapproved their spam posts but do not have the rights to delete.)

by **abhay** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 9:42 am

Hello everyone - it's so cool to be back here. Back in 2007 I was one of the admins on lateralpuzzles.com and went by the username noobdogg

It's amazing to see so many usernames here that I still remember from 15 years ago. Great to be back and glad the forum is continuing on!

by **Sundowner64** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 9:36 pm

Welcome back, abhay!

by **trebor2** » Fri Jul 29, 2022 7:53 am

Welcome back, abhay! I remember your old username from when I used to lurk around the old forum, years before joining.

by **Nomophobe1989** » Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:33 pm

Hey, was around years ago (as Logician and then briefly as Nomophobe before I lost access to that account), back again now

Does anyone know how long it takes posts to get accepted in puzzle threads? I tried a few days ago to start off asking questions in a couple of puzzles, it said they'd have to accepted by mods, but they haven't appeared yet

by **Sundowner64** » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:49 am

Welcome (back) Nomophobe! I remember your puzzles in the old (pre-2015) forum very well.
Sorry for the delay in approving, I was on vacation. (It's just the first post of a new member that needs to get approved, we did so to keep spammers out. Now you're free to post whereever and whenever you like.)

by **BalinTheDwarf** » Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:37 pm

Just a quick pop-in to apologize for my general inactivity over the course of 2022 - I've been dealing with a lot in my mental health and with a summer job that has just ended. I have also just begun student-teaching so my presence here will likely be sparse for the rest of the year. I do want to get back into lateral puzzling but can't guarantee it with regularity right now. Hope things are going well here.

by **WiZ** » Tue Sep 13, 2022 12:56 am

This forum has survived for roughly a decade on overextended people wanting to go back into puzzling with no guarantee of regularity. I look forward to (possibly) seeing more of your work, Balin.

by **Nomophobe1989** » Wed Sep 14, 2022 6:33 pm

Sundowner64 wrote:Welcome (back) Nomophobe! I remember your puzzles in the old (pre-2015) forum very well.
Sorry for the delay in approving, I was on vacation. (It's just the first post of a new member that needs to get approved, we did so to keep spammers out. Now you're free to post whereever and whenever you like.)

No worries, thanks - and it's good to be back

by **Sarisberie** » Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:36 pm

Ah, Nomophobe, maybe that's why I didn't see your post on my thread. *Twilight zone music*.

Balin Sorry to hear about your m/health. Same thing here. Hope you feel better soon.

by **Biograd1** » Fri Sep 23, 2022 4:55 pm

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently published the solution to a puzzle that some people on here might find interesting. It's a bit like some of the Christmas puzzles that have been posted on here, in that it's a long series of using the results of one puzzle to find another--except with a computer/cryptography theme:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/e ... zle-solved

by **GalFisk** » Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:39 pm

That's some impressive puzzle solving.

by **WiZ** » Wed Oct 19, 2022 8:12 pm

Hi everyone, hope you're all well.

I just stumbled upon a Facebook group which sets and solves the puzzles from Only Connect (from all four rounds). They tend to get solved within a quarter of an hour or so (usually by Brits *shakes fist at timezones*), but this is offset by the thick and fast pace of people posting new ones. It's genuinely impressive, and the standard is consistently high. Some clever people in this world of ours.

I wanted to post a Round 1 puzzle but find myself stymied by reservations about how easy the puzzle might be, how the established solvers might react and whether or not I'd be breaking any unwritten rules or covering established ground.

I expect the few newcomers here would have the same hesitancies. I hope we regulars turned out as nice as you hoped

by **BalinTheDwarf** » Fri Oct 21, 2022 2:34 pm

The Ringer just posted an article about Only Connect linking to that same Facebook group. I too have hopped in and set a Round 2-er to start.