bonanova

Guess the colored marbles, on steroids!

And under any conditions of T and p, "a pint's a pound the world around" is a saying that's spelled and spoken the same throughout the English-speaking world. A case of artistic expression being more invariant than science. Edit: To admit the English-language usage restriction of an ostensibly global shibboleth. Comment: Even though it's imperfect science, its wide usage well qualifies it as a puzzle clue.

Nice collective effort, solving it bit by bit like that.

Hi bonanova...good one... Not quite, but good try.

Headed for bed, but will get Group 3 started with a quick glance ...

Carrying on the Single-letter exchanges: Right here, present location But, logically Pre-zzzzz's Perfected Half overdone Twice bisected, but not quartered. Right now, present occasion Pyramid, of sorts Rule, for obfuscation Interior layout Correct a mistake Signal to cease 100 ergs/gram, or, 57.295 Enticement to purchase Small article Exclamation Edit: I omitted number 12. Now it's all much easier. Letters do not stay in same order, necessarily. Clue 5 fixed.

I think the problem unravels like this: Larry's response to the first question would be: "Yes, I am an Alternator." Larry's response to the second question would be: "Larry would say 'No, I am not an Alternator'." Both responses are untruthful. The second response is the one you receive when you ask the question.

Hi mrzincs, and welcome to the Den! That would be correct. Now, for the rest of the coveted bonanova Gold Star, can you logically decode his message?

You haven't said who is being asked the "how would a liar respond" question. Is the puzzle solver supposed to respond? Or is a liar being asked, and the puzzle solver being asked how the liar would respond? You have left that point unclear. I think you're getting trapped by pronouns. Give names to all the correspondents. Who asks which question of whom, then write down the truthful responses. When you've done that, you won't be unclear as to how a liar will respond. Again, a Liar if asked, will say he is telling the truth. But his statement that he is truthful is not truthful; he is a liar after all. All good liars represent themselves as being truthful.

That fits celebrity and bits, but misses profession and punctuation. Good try.

You're sniffing around the right tree. You could be close enough, or, you could insert a logical step.

You're right.

Profession is given. What was said is cryptic. Logical, but cryptic. No, but you're thinking about the part that's cryptic. Could be ...

I guess it's to show what sense it has. It might have been posted as a logic puzzle, but it seemed riddle-like as well.

This might be an interesting genre of riddle. Others can give it a try. So you're a writer, Bill. Care to give us a sample of your work? Sure. Here's a few bits of it: FF?

I'm not sure why that question is Ill-defined for an Alternator.

But 2 x 2 x 2 = 8, and there are 9 options. The algorithm needs to use the information that some options are more likely than others.

Anyway ... Overdue kudos to the solvers bushindo and Yoruichi-san. That's it. 120o angles at the waypoints.

Both right. witzar's solution has the following

The spectrum of approaches here is a worthy display of the best efforts of our Denizens. Truly impressive. Here's the telling clue: The OP referred to the choices as character strings. See comments below. Not the distinguishing characteristic I had in mind; it slipped in, due to lack of careful editing. Honorable Mention, nonetheless. Correct. If one string is extremal with respect to property X, it then differs from all the others in that regard. In this case, X has the value of "sameness." Honorable Mention #2. Nice! OMG. Perhaps, but I'm not going to even try to verify that claim. I've got more. Never would doubt it. plasmid, I continue to stand in awe ... And if one is lying down while solving, the first column would then be the most different row. <almost> Honorable Mention. Hope this was enjoyable ... good answers all.

The board has this weird notion that every vehicle must have a yellow line on its left every inch of the way between every pair of cities, fearing legal head-on collisions otherwise. So, like it or not, we've got to minimize the total length of that yellow line.

Among the six character strings below, which is the most different? ILMRV MPRSV LMQRS LMRSV KLRSV CLMSV