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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 9, 2018 14:35:51 GMT -5
There may be cruise control, but it doesn't seem to matter. Here's the official answer:
RAY: But how could he do that without the use of a clock or a watch? And this has nothing to do with a string and a lighter, but I said it's close.
TOM: It's close.
RAY: And that was the hint.
TOM: It's close.
RAY: It would not allow any timepieces, per se.
TOM: Per se. But it doesn't mean you couldn't measure time somehow, if it weren't with a timepiece.
RAY: Right. I mean, you could use the sun. And I'm sure people were trying to think of how to use the odometer, or singing a song. You could do that. They could sing the "Star Spangled Banner."
TOM: Ah! Ouch! That's good!
RAY: That would be pretty good, huh?
TOM: I hadn't thought of that.
RAY: But better than all of those is you turn on the windshield wipers and you count the swipes.
TOM: Wow!
RAY: And you can't get a better timepiece than that.
And last week got away from me because of bronchitis, so here are two Puzzlers:
1. RAY: I'd like to give you this Puzzler in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There had been a terrible accident in a suburb north of London, and Inspector LeStrade had been sent to investigate. Sir Richard Ashcroft was dead, and everyone agreed that it was an accident--although some suspected it was a suicide.
Sir Richard had been found on a rocky slope, his head dashed against one of the boulders and his mangled bicycle at his side. The facts seemed to speak for themselves.
He had lost control of his bike and had crashed. There had been no eyewitnesses, but finally an eyewitness emerged: Nigel--Sir Richard's trusted gardener of many years.
Haltingly, he told his story: "I was walking back from town up that long hill leading to Sir Richard's estate when I saw him riding toward me, sitting straight up in his seat the way he always rode. He was traveling at a high rate of speed. Suddenly, he jerked the handlebars to the left, and off the road he flew to his death.
Later that day, LeStrade is discussing the points of the case with his buddy, Sherlock Holmes, over cognac and a few Arturo Fuentes cigars. Holmes says, "Bring the gardener in for questioning. He's the perpetrator."
How DID Holmes know?
2. RAY: I don't know who sent this in, but here it is: When I was in school, our teacher had the habit of putting little cryptic messages on the blackboard. And one day--it was near the end of the school year--she wrote the following thing on the board.
TOM: Do I need a pencil for this?
RAY: You need a pencil.
TOM: OK, go ahead!
RAY: E I L N P U.
TOM: Huh?
RAY: And the only hint I'll give is that it was near the end of the school year.
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 16, 2018 16:03:06 GMT -5
Here's the answer:
RAY: At the end of the school year, what's often done is some kind of graduation photographs are taken. And so that they can figure out whose picture goes with what name, they ask the kids to line up in alphabetical order. That's what E-I-L-N-P-U.
TOM: Well, no, if you had said they were going to take a picture, that would have been a real hint!
RAY: That would have been too easy!
TOM: Ah, the idea.
RAY: In my never-ending quest to complicate and obfuscate, I felt that that was good enough.
And this week's Puzzler:
RAY: This was sent by Ted Getchman and the answer may be controversial. I'm going to say that in advance and I'm prepared to take the heat. Well, Ted and I are. He writes:
Recently I had a hankering to read Edward Gibbons' three-volume set, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, no small undertaking considering there are exactly 2,500 pages of text and illustrations in each volume.
Sadly, as I reached for them on the shelf I could see that mold had damaged every page and cover from the front of Volume I, though that cover was undamaged, to the back cover of Volume III, though it too was undamaged.
TOM: And everything in between was mold.
RAY: I called the local book repairer and he said that it would cost a penny a page and fifty cents a cover to repair. He says, "Bring the affected volumes over and come back in a week, I'll be all done."
So I show up in a week prepared to pay the bill, and it's about half of what I expected it to be.
The statement that it was half is a hint. The question is how much was the repair?
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 24, 2018 16:40:24 GMT -5
Here's the answer:
RAY: The answer is $13.50. All that was damaged was Volume II, which is the volume in the middle. You have Volume I sitting on the shelf to the left. Volume II is next to it on the right. And Volume III is even further to the right.
Now remember, Ted said as he reached for them on the shelf he could see that mold had damaged every page and cover from the front of Volume I, though that cover was undamaged, to the back cover of Volume III, though that too was undamaged. So as the books are placed on the shelf, the cover of Volume I is the closest thing of Volume I to Volume II.
TOM: Yah. It's on the right side when you put it in there.
RAY: Exactly. And the back cover of Volume III is on the left side, it is also the closest thing to Volume II.
TOM: So it's only Volume II that's affected. Son of a gun.
RAY: So if you go to your bookshelf and look at three books and imagine they're labeled Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, you'll see that the book in the middle is the only one that was damaged by the mold, and there were two covers damaged. Right? Those two covers, the front and back cover of Volume II.
And the reason it was $13.50 was that even though there were 2500 printed pages, there were only 1250 pages of actual paper because there's printing on both sides. So it's only a penny apiece to clean each page. And two covers, right, 50 cents apiece, $13.50.
TOM: Phew!
And I see that I missed an answer above, to the Sherlock Holmes one about the bicycle crash:
RAY: How did he know?
TOM: OK. Go ahead!
RAY: Well, as is often the case, some Puzzlers have...the question is great. Well, you'll decide.
TOM: I have to say that you have taken a little...a little...
RAY: Unknown fact.
TOM: A little unknown fact, and you've turned it into a little novelette. And when people hear what the little-known fact is, you are going to get so much hate mail, and I just want to distance myself...
RAY: No, no, no.
TOM: From this Puzzler now.
RAY: Well, first of all, I have to roll up my sleeves and spit out my gum for this.
TOM: Yeah. OK. Go ahead.
RAY: When Nigel saw Sir Richard riding down the road at a high rate of speed, sitting straight up on his bicycle the way he always rode, he said that he saw Sir Richard jerk the handlebars to the left, and, as such, make a left-hand turn...
TOM: And, whew!
RAY: And crash.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: Well, everyone who rides a bicycle knows, or almost everyone knows, that that's not the way you turn a bicycle. In fact, what makes the bicycle stable is the gyroscopic action of the wheels. You with me?
TOM: Mmm-hmm.
RAY: Right? And, in fact, the way you make lefts and rights is by leaning the bicycle and changing the center of gravity.
TOM: Oh, that was...for the...sitting upright as he...oh. As he always did.
RAY: Sitting upright, OK? So, he didn't lean into the turn.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: But you say, "Well, so what?"
TOM: So what?
RAY: But he jerked those handlebars to the left, and that would do it.
TOM: Yes.
RAY: And here's the little-known fact that LeStrade didn't know.
TOM: No, because he doesn't ride his bike like Sherlock does.
RAY: And nor did Nigel.
TOM: Nor did Nigel.
RAY: The perpetrator.
TOM: Mmm-hmm.
RAY: If you're riding at a high rate of speed and you don't lean, but in fact, you decide to make a turn like that, by turning your wheel to the left, the bike goes to the right. Now, my brother, being the incredulous type, decided to try this whilst on vacation on Cape Cod this summer...
TOM: Yes.
RAY: And did spend three rather happy days at Cape Cod Hospital recovering from his injuries. It's true. I'm not sure I know all the scientific principles involved, but the gyroscope wants to keep the bike going straight.
TOM: And so it goes the other way.
RAY: And so it corrects. If you try to make a left-hand turn by turning the wheel, it corrects and actually makes the bike turn to the right.
TOM: The truth is...
RAY: So Nigel couldn't have seen Sir Richard turn the handlebars to the left and exit the road.
TOM: Yeah, well...I mean, I couldn't get it to happen. I tried it.
RAY: Because you weren't going fast enough. But when I towed you with the car, though, you got up to speed.
And the new Puzzler for this week:
RAY: This puzzler is from the Wonderful World of Statistics. A graduate student worked at one of the institutions of higher learning in Our Fair City, and wrote his dissertation on the relationship between uncontrollable outside forces and automobile accidents.
He collected thousands and thousands of accident reports from the State of Massachusetts and correlated the time of the accident with other factors, like temperature, road conditions, automobile size, age of the driver, alcohol usage, speed limits, and whether the accident victim was listening to Car Talk.
After thousands of hours of data input and hours of computer grinding, he discovered an amazing statistic. He found the absolute safest time of year to drive an automobile on a public highway.
It was so safe, in fact, that not one single accident had occurred.
However, still not able to believe his own conclusions, he returned to collecting more accident reports -- this time nationwide. Nationwide, he found that there had been statistically less than 2% of the number of accidents in any other time frame.
The question is: when was the safest time of the year to drive on a public highway and why?
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 30, 2018 20:07:31 GMT -5
You might not like the answer to this Puzzler. I sure don't, but I just post them anyway:
TOM: That's really the wrong question, isn't it? Now that I know the answer.
RAY: Why is it the wrong question?
TOM: See, it's not the safest time of the year.
RAY: There is no time.
TOM: It's just the data happened to show it because he was a moron, and all those jerks in academia kept paying for his research because they got no more brains than he had.
RAY: Well, I bet it took a long time to figure out ...
TOM: I bet it did. It took us a while.
RAY: Because there is a phenomenon that occurs, I think, the first Sunday in April where we turn our clocks ahead. And it occurs at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. So, if you were a police officer at 2:00 a.m., when you're supposed to change the clock ahead ...
TOM: You change it to 3:00.
RAY: You change your watch to 3:00. So it is impossible for an accident to be recorded between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. on that first Sunday.
TOM: That one day a year.
RAY: And that is indeed the safest time to drive. And, of course, nationwide there were some accidents when he did the nationwide investigation, there were a couple of states, Indiana and Arizona, that don't do daylight saving time, to the best of my knowledge.
Let's hope the next one has a better solution:
RAY: This next puzzler is from my World War II series. The inspiration for it was sent in by Todd Markin.
TOM: Is there a dimly lit Quonset hut involved?
RAY: You'll see. D-Day is approaching. It's vitally important that the location of German troops and ammunitions dumps be communicated to the Allied Command in England. The French Resistance fighters must now be put to work. Rail lines and bridges need to be taken out, and the timing is critical.
Radio communication is too risky. Information must be exchanged in person. To that end, a small boat leaves England headed for the French coast. Two robust young men quietly work the oars. There's no moon this night, and the thick overcast is an unexpected yet welcome measure of security.
The third man in the boat is too old and feeble to be of much use rowing. He works the signal light as they near the shore. Three quick flashes follow by a pause, and then two flashes. His counterpart, a retired cavalryman, a veteran of the Great War, is hunkered down in the sand on the French coast.
He signals three quick flashes with his light, then the all clear to come ashore. The men quickly exchange documents and in an instant they're gone, the Frenchmen disappearing into the inky shadows. The three men in the boat swiftly and quietly row back to Mother England.
Now, here's the interesting part. The soldiers of the German shore patrol, and there were many of them -- each with the keen eyesight one would expect of young men -- didn't see them or their flashing signal lights.
The question is, why not? I'm going to give you a hint. It had to do with the old men.
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Post by Rob Allen on May 15, 2018 18:31:35 GMT -5
I'm late again, so we have a couple of new ones along with the answer to the last one about the spies in WWII:
RAY: Now even though Todd Markin's letter was really convincing I didn't trust him. I mean I've been embarrassed so many times before with puzzlers that sounded so good, I had to consult my pal, Dr. Paul Vinger who's an ophthalmologist to find out if in fact this answer was legit.
TOM: Or -- Bo-oh-oh-gus.
RAY: And as you might suspect, the old men were critical because they had had something done to them that only old people have. They had had cataract surgery. And when you have cataracts removed, the lens is removed because the lens is what's gotten cloudy. And what the lens does is it filters out ultraviolet light. So when the lens is removed on those people who have had the surgery, they can now see ultraviolet light, and of course the young German soldiers -- none of whom had ever had cataract surgery -- could not see the light.
New Puzzler #1 - an automotive problem:
RAY: This puzzler is from Kent Hartfield from Texas. He says:
I was driving my Ford Aerostar down the road in Arlington, Texas, last June, when all of a sudden I heard a muffled BANG that was immediately followed by the motor dying.
I pulled off to the side of the road and popped the hood. This has a little hood because the engine is kind of buried. And looked to see what had happened. Once I saw what had happened, I thought, Gee, this is gonna cost a lot to have fixed. I closed the hood, got back in the van, started the engine and drove off.
TOM: He didn't say where the boom-bang came from. But since he opened the hood, we can assume that it came from the front of the vehicle?
RAY: Well, I'll give you that. The muffled bang came from under the hood.
New Puzzler #2 - a train problem:
RAY: Here’s a puzzler of yesteryear.
Imagine, if you will, a long freight train. Like the kind you see out West with a couple of hundred cars getting ready to leave the train yard. The engineer opens the throttle and the train starts to pull away from the yard. Then they realize that the caboose has a problem. The brake is frozen on one of the wheels of the caboose.
TOM: How would they know?
RAY: Because the wheel is being dragged and there's sparks and smoke. And someone standing there says, "Stop the train." So, they manage to signal to the engineer, to stop the train. Well, they can't fix it, so they just cut the caboose loose. They remove it and they give him the go ahead. They wave him. You know. Go ahead. He gives it the throttle. The train doesn't move.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: He gives it more throttle, it doesn't move. He gives it more and what's happening is the train isn't moving, but his wheels are spinning. There's nothing wrong with any of the remaining cars and there's nothing wrong with the engine, but there is something wrong with the engineer.
The question is what's wrong with this picture?
I actually remember hearing the answer to #2 when they first broadcast it.
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 30, 2018 4:53:38 GMT -5
I'm attempting a series of puzzles for a film board I post on. They require a bit of film knowledge to puzzle out. The puzzles will all be a list of movies, perhaps with a bit of attached verbage. The answer will always be a movie. The first one is in the link, but I'll replicate below: letterboxd.com/chris_coke/list/film-puzzle-1/The answer is a film. Clue #1: What happened on that street? -- Elektra Labyrinth Magnolia Clue #2: -- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Sunset Song Midnight in Paris Clue #3: -- Die Hard Home Alone Love, Actually |
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 30, 2018 4:56:11 GMT -5
The second (and harder) of my films puzzles is here, replicated below: letterboxd.com/chris_coke/list/film-puzzle-2/The answer is a film. Clue #1: Describe the man. -- After Earth Another Earth Shadow of the Vampire Jack Goes Home Song of the South Clue #2: What type of bird? -- The Wizard of Oz The Philadelphia Story Dr. Phibes Rises Again Face/Off You've Got Mail Clue #3: L -- One Fine Day One Kine Day Enemy Mine Nine Months Shine a Light |
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