Can anyone make any sense out of this sentence:Bayou out exits: Stite-nyet!
(Warning: This may be difficult … but I doubt it’s as difficult than other recent offerings. 
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I have one guess of a starting idea for septimus’s puzzle, but I can’t make it go anywhere
The opposite of “nyet” is “da”, and the last phrase may turn out to be correspondingly “Ta-da!”. But I have no idea what “Stite” is; it seems a rather rare word.
We have three puzzles pending, I think.
- Coloring Indistinguishable’s hexagon by hand, I got a bigger profit than I expected, but any general principle has so far escaped me.
- I’ve seen Dr Strangelove’s puzzle before, so it would be fubar for me to comment on it.
- Sorry about “stite” in my puzzle. If it seems like gibberish, just treat it as gibberish.
This hint may itself seem like … gibberish. But too big a hint would spoil the satisfaction of the rare solver who might guess my sentence.
My family is gathering today. I will give my sister a shot at it. I got nothing but bad anagrams.
Noticing some repetitions of letters:
Bayou out exits: Stite-nyet!
Removing those repetitions, we get:
Bay Tex NY!
I’m thinking the sentence should really read:
Galveston Manhasset!
Getting (very slightly) warm.
Cold.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I don’t like to give big hints, so I’ll give one probably far too vague to be helpful: If you solve this puzzle, you’ll identify one of my favorite poems.
:smack: :eek: I didn’t think of it until just now, but my favorite poet is strongly connected to my puzzle in another way. Just saying this much may be almost too big of a hint.
Given that some of the repetitions are reversed, I suppose it might be a fragment of a palindrome. At least, a mangled palindrome.
“Stite-nyet” anagrams to “teeny tits.”
Am I warm? 
I hope so…
Anagram? No. Letter play? Yes.
Cryptic-wise, bayou could be “outlet” and if “out” exits you get “let…”
Quoth the raven: Never-more!
Nice! This one stumped my family.
Very nice, Indistinguishable !
Thanks!
There are two outstanding puzzles left, then: Dr. Strangelove’s from post #200 (which, alas, I spoiled for myself by Googling), and mine from post #192 (which, alas, I spoiled for myself by creating).
Still thinking about yours, Indistinguishable. Mainly, a way to at least prove an upper bound to myself. Haven’t come up with anything, though.
I suspect that mine is a tad unfair without a few hints. I’ll spoiler them in case anyone is masochistic and wants to avoid them. None are a giveaway, but I’ll start vague and get more specific from there.The meaning of each word is irrelevant.Each word has another word associated with it.If you had the full list of words, the associates would appear on that list as well.The associate’s associate is the original word.Each associate is the same length as the original.This puzzle is just bad luck.
I’ve tried Indistinguishable’s puzzle #192, but without coming up with any clear pattern. I’ll give my partial results.
[SPOILER]On the 4-to-a-side (37-cell) hexagon grid Indistinguishable linked to, I can score $6 various ways. In effect there seems to be $1 profit to be had in each corner.
On a smaller 3-to-a-side (19-cell) hexagon grid, I’m pretty sure the maximum profit is $4; and for a 2-to-a-side (7-cell) hexagon grid, just $2.
How about a 5-to-a-side (61-cell) hexagon grid? I don’t know: I’m too lazy to try, too stupid to deduce, and too fearful to guess. 
[/SPOILER]
septimus, you are indeed achieving the maximum profit in each case you are examining. There is a simple pattern to the profits you are getting for 2-to-a-side, 3-to-a-side, and 4-to-a-side. You say you are too fearful to guess the corresponding value for 5-to-a-side; perhaps show your partial results to a stereotypical cheerleader and ask how they’d propose extending the sequence?
(There is also a very simple exhaustive description of the ways to achieve the maximum profit on all sizes and shapes of boards (even weird, asymmetric ones), for what it’s worth. I will provide more hints on this front later.)