Hopefully New riddle...
MATTHEW PRIESTLEY
: He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
1) did he die from loss of blood?
2) was it, perhaps, his arm that was lopped off?
--
__ ___
/_/\ / /\
|_|:\ *************************************** / /::\
/ /::\ * MATTHEW PRIESTLEY * / /:/\:\
_/ /:/\:\ * prie...@uiuc.edu * / /:/ /:/
/_/:./::\ \:\ * http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~priestle * /__/:/ /:/
\ \::/\:\ \:\ * * \ \:\/:/
\ \:\_\/__\/ * * \ \::/
\ \:\ * Rage is Optional. * \ \:\
\ \:\ * * \ \:\
\ \:\ *************************************** \ \:\
\__\/ \__\/
Grasshopper
Andy Soell <aso...@freenet.columbus.oh.us> wrote:
!MATTHEW PRIESTLEY (prie...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote:
!: Andy Soell (aso...@freenet.columbus.oh.us) wrote:
!
!
!: : He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
!
!: 1) did he die from loss of blood?
!
!Hmmm...obviously this isn't as well knows as I had been told...
!
!No.
!
!: 2) was it, perhaps, his arm that was lopped off?
!
!No.
!
did he die from a tree falling on him?
--
-D- '94 RF900RR (rrrred!!) DoD#909 ....o&o>
http://www.access.digex.net/~dipaula/
**-->What I write represents my opinions, not DIGEX's.<--**
Tom Ekeberg
>
> He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
>
1) Are termites (or something similar) involved?
2) Did a structure collapse on him?
Tom Ekeberg
Oslo, Norway
Tom Maciukenas
Andy Soell <aso...@freenet.columbus.oh.us> wrote:
>
> He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
The house collapsed on him. Had he seen the sawdust he would have realized
that some nutcase had cut his house into a life-sized 3-d Jigsaw Puzzle.
This would have tipped him off not to lean on the wall...
:^)
-ToMM
Tom Ekeberg
>
>
> He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
>
While I'm waiting for an answer to my first questiones, I'll add
another...
3) Was the sawdust spread out on a road to suck up spilt oil?
Tom Ekeberg
Oslo, Norway
Kiddo
[==> He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
1) Is it a play on words: (... seen .... saw ...)?
2) Is "sawdust" truly one word?
Kent
+==================================+
Great leaders are rare,
so I'm following myself
+==================================+
Mathew Hendry
:
: OK, I'm VERY new here....(just wandered in) so I thought, despite the
: warning in the FAQ, to try my riddle. This is a yes/no thing, so I'll try
: to stop in and reply when I can. Here it is:
:
: He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
:
: Your objective is to discover the circumstances around his death, such as
: why, etc. You can ask yes/no questions.
Does his death involve beavers?
-- Mat.
Thomas Murray
> He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
>
his high-wire act. Because Bobo was playing around with the Bearded Lady,
her husband, The Two-Faced Boy, decided to kill him. One night The
Two-Faced Boy snuck into Bobo's dressing room and sawed one of the stilts
nearly through. It was dark, and he failed to notice the telltale sawdust
on the floor.
The next day, when Bobo was getting ready for his act, he was dreaming
about his next tryst with his beloved Bearded Lady and also failed to
notice the sawdust. That was a fatal error, for during Bobo's dangerous
double flip on the high-wire, the stilt snapped and Bobo fell 101 feet to
his demise. If only he had seen the sawdust...
Either that, or this guy went into a wood mill, failed to see the sawdust
and walked directly into a rotary saw.
Tom Murray
tom...@hooked.net
Arma virumque cano.
Jonathan Haas
>aso...@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Andy Soell) wrote:
>
>> He wouldn't have died if he had seen the sawdust.
>
>another...
>
>3) Was the sawdust spread out on a road to suck up spilt oil?
Look, if you people are going to do this, do it by email. Don't
you get that silly "your posting will cost the net hundreds
if not thousands of dollars" warning? This is absolutely
not of general interest, and you should *stop* posting your
questions and answers to hundreds of thousands of people
who couldn't care less.
Better yet, read the rec.puzzles archive, which has a huge
list of these puzzles, including this one.
I'm not even going to put in a spoiler warning here, this
puzzle is so contrived and stupid. He was a circus
midget, who'd built his reputation on being the shortest
midget in the circus. A jealous (presumably taller) midget
sawed off the bottom of his cane. When the midget tried his
cane and found that it was lower than usual, he assumed he
was growing, and this made him so Gosh-darned depressed,
he killed himself on the spot. And if he'd only seen the
sawdust, he'd have realized what happened. Makes perfect
sense, doesn't it? I mean, I know if *I* were in his
situation, *I'd* kill myself immediately, without waiting
to measure myself or examining the cane more closely or
anything like that. Why wait? Avoid the rush!
--
__/\__ Jonathan S. Haas | Jake liked his women the way he liked
\ / jh...@microsoft.com | his kiwi fruit: sweet yet tart, firm-
/_ _\ Microsoft Corporation | fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and
\/ Don't Tread On Me | covered with short brown fuzzy hair.
Tom Kerruish
(Just couldn't resist peeking, could you?)
The dead person is a blind midget who worked as a circus clown and has just
committed suicide. Being blind, he always walked with the aid of a cane, in his
case made of wood. He was extremely popular with circus-goers; too popular, in
the view of one of his fellow performers. This rival felt that the midget was
blocking his own path to fame and glory, so he concocted a rather diabolical
scheme. Over the course of several months, this other clown very gradually
sawed the end off the midget's cane, so as to become shorter and shorter. (This
is the source of the sawdust, incidentally.) The midget, being blind, had no
idea the cane was getting shorter; instead, he believed that he was starting to
grow taller. Since no one would want to see a blind clown of normal height (or
at least feel comfortable laughing at one), he believed that his career was at
an end. Despondent, he killed himself, which is exactly what his rival intended
to happen.
Stephen H. Landrum
>
> OK, I'm VERY new here....(just wandered in) so I thought, despite the
> warning in the FAQ, to try my riddle. This is a yes/no thing, so I'll try
> to stop in and reply when I can. Here it is:
>
>
> humbled with a barage of emails saying "Do you know how old that riddle
> is?!" But who cares.
>
Here's the section from the archive on this particular one:
1.17. A man is dead in a room with a small pile of pieces of wood and
sawdust in one corner. (from "Coroner's Inquest," by Marc Connelly)
1.17. The man is a blind midget, the shortest one in the circus.
Another
midget, jealous because he's not as short, has been sawing small pieces
off
of the first one's cane every night, so that every day he thinks he's
taller.
Since his only income is from being a circus midget, he decides to kill
himself when he gets too tall.
1.17a. Slightly variant answer: Instead of sawing pieces off of the
midget's
cane, someone has sawed the legs off of his bed. He wakes up, stands
up, and
thinks he's grown during the night.
1.17b. Variant: A pile of sawdust, no net, a man dies. Answer: A
midget is
jealous of the clown who walks on stilts. He saws partway through the
stilts; the clown walks along and falls and dies when they break. (from
Peter R. Olpe)
--
Stephen H. Landrum voice: (415)261-2626 email: slan...@3do.com
System software programmer, M2 graphics division.
For general 3DO questions email customer...@3do.com
Tom Ekeberg
morning, then he wrote:
>Look, if you people are going to do this, do it by email. Don't
>you get that silly "your posting will cost the net hundreds
>if not thousands of dollars" warning? This is absolutely
>not of general interest, and you should *stop* posting your
>questions and answers to hundreds of thousands of people
>who couldn't care less.
>
>Better yet, read the rec.puzzles archive, which has a huge
>list of these puzzles, including this one.
>
>I'm not even going to put in a spoiler warning here, this
>puzzle is so contrived and stupid.
<snip>
I see that I have made a fool of myself, it was a stupid puzzle (I didn't
post it), and I don't mind that you stopped it. Noise should be kept at
as low a level as possible. But since I don't like being yelled at, I'll
make a fool of myself once more by posting this. I apologize to the
"hundreds of thousands of people who couldn't care less".
From the rec.puzzles FAQ:
"The rec.puzzles newsgroup is generally a friendly one..."
Did you write that? Nah, you just maintain it, right?
and further down:
"3.1. ==> situation.puzzles <== [logic/part3 and logic/part4]
A man lies dead with 53 bicycles in front of him.
A man walks into a bar, asks for a drink, the bartender points a
gun at him, the man says "thank you" and leaves.
Nobody's sure what these are really called, but here on rec.puzzles we
call them "situation puzzles"."
This clearly implies that this kind of puzzles are welcome here. Also,
the FAQ says you should look through the archive before you _post_ a
puzzle. Not that you have to look through it before you try to answer. I
suggest you change the FAQ in accordance with the views you express here.
But what really annoys me is your worries about net economy. This
newsgroup, like hundreds of other newsgroups, is totally useless, and any
posting to any newsgroup, useless or not, takes net capacity away from
(hundreds of thousands of) people who are not at all interested in that
particular posting. So if you wanna live by your own rules, you should
work towards the discontinuation of this newsgroup, and go out and buy
yourself a new book of puzzles, or maybe publish one. Unless, of course,
you think postings of why we're not upside down in mirrors or cute poems
where the number of letters to every word represents pi, are of general
interest to the internet community. (Something about pot, kettle and the
absence of reflection of light.)
To everybody else, sorry for making a fool out of myself twice, I promise
I won't prolong this thread by answering when y'all flame me.
Tom Ekeberg
Oslo, Norway
Tom Magliery
Jonathan may have yelled just a little too loud, but he's well known to be
rather impatient with puzzles that we see all the time. Usually his
answers are more clever and less mean. I don't think he was picking on
you personally; but it probably did look that way.
I felt I had to address a couple of the points you made in your article...
In article <4gcpea$d...@hasle.sn.no>, Tom Ekeberg <ele...@oslonett.no> wrote:
> From the rec.puzzles FAQ:
> "The rec.puzzles newsgroup is generally a friendly one..."
>
> Did you write that? Nah, you just maintain it, right?
In fact, Jonathan Haas (whom you quoted above (and I deleted), and to whom
I assume you're referring here) did not write it. He does just maintain
it. I wrote it. And you conveniently failed to mention the part right
after that where it says something like "however, most folks in the
newsgroup have a MAJOR pet peeve" (and I think the emphasis on "major" is
there).
> and further down:
>
> "3.1. ==> situation.puzzles <== [logic/part3 and logic/part4]
>
> A man lies dead with 53 bicycles in front of him.
>
> A man walks into a bar, asks for a drink, the bartender points a
> gun at him, the man says "thank you" and leaves.
>
> Nobody's sure what these are really called, but here on rec.puzzles we
> call them "situation puzzles"."
>
> This clearly implies that this kind of puzzles are welcome here.
I disagree. Their presence in the FAQ explicitly indicates that they are
NOT welcome (unless some new, interesting discussion about them is taking
place). We also have a name for the Monty Hall Puzzle ("the Monty Hall
Puzzle"). That doesn't mean it's welcome.
> Also,
> the FAQ says you should look through the archive before you _post_ a
> puzzle. Not that you have to look through it before you try to answer. I
> suggest you change the FAQ in accordance with the views you express here.
I *think* you're picking nits here, and that the spirit of the FAQ
suggests that one shouldn't really be answering frequently-asked puzzles
either (again, unless there's some value-addedness going on), but it is
probably worth having another look at the wording to be sure.
Ob-SET puzzle: (This one's easy; I'm just curious to see different
approaches to proving it.) (If you don't know what the game of SET is,
look here: http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Set/) First a fact: For any
two SET cards, there is exactly one other that together with them will
form a SET. Now then, suppose you have two SETs, one with cards {a,b,c}
and one with cards {d,e,f}. Let g, h, and i be the cards that form the
SETs {a,d,g}, {b,e,h}, and {c,f,i}. Prove that either {g,h,i} is a SET,
or g, h, and i are all the same card.
mag
--
.---o Tom Magliery, Research Programmer .---o
`-O-. NCSA, 605 E. Springfield (217) 333-3198 `-O-.
o---' Champaign, IL 61820 m...@ncsa.uiuc.edu o---'
Greg Dionne
m...@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Tom Magliery) writes:
> (Ob-puzzle below)
Thanks for the warning, I was about to toss this subject into my kill
file again...
> Ob-SET puzzle: (This one's easy; I'm just curious to see different
> approaches to proving it.) (If you don't know what the game of SET is,
> look here: http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Set/) First a fact: For any
> two SET cards, there is exactly one other that together with them will
> form a SET. Now then, suppose you have two SETs, one with cards {a,b,c}
> and one with cards {d,e,f}. Let g, h, and i be the cards that form the
> SETs {a,d,g}, {b,e,h}, and {c,f,i}. Prove that either {g,h,i} is a SET,
> or g, h, and i are all the same card.
For those of you without a web reader, here's the relevant section, taken
from Tom's home page:
The object of the game is to identify a 'Set' of three cards from 12
cards laid out on the table. Each card has a variation of the follow-
ing four features:
(A) COLOR: Each card is red, green, or purple.
(B) SYMBOL: Each card contains ovals, squiggles, or diamonds.
(C) NUMBER: Each card has one, two, or three symbols.
(D) SHADING: Each card is solid, open, or striped.
A 'Set' consists of three cards in which each feature is EITHER the
same on each card OR is different on each card. That is to say, any
feature in the 'Set' of three cards is either common to all three
cards or is different on each card.
The Magic Rule: If two are... and one is not, then it is not a 'Set'
Tom requested different solutions, so, here's mine. Compare with yours.
SPOILER BELOW (I hope, see disclaimer):
I see by the above rules that if {g,h,i} are all the same card, then it
is a set. I didn't find out how many cards were available to choose from,
but I assume this distinction was added because each card is unique in the
game. I don't know if the deck of cards to choose from contains all the
various permutations of colors, symbols, numbers, and shadings... I'll
assume it does, but I'm guessing that there is a suitably chosen set of
all the permutations available in the real deck.
Disclaimer: This is a brain-dump with rather sloppy notation, so I hope
this will be somewhat coherent.
Let's assume {a,b,c}, {d,e,f}, {g,h,i}, {a,d,g}, {b,e,h}, and {c,f,i} are
all sets. We will now show {g,h,i} is a set.
define: {a,b,c} = {(A1,A2,A3,A4),(B1,B2,B3,B4),(C1,C2,C3,C4)}
{d,e,f} = {(D1,D2,D3,D4),(E1,E2,E3,E4),(F1,F2,F3,F4)}
{g,h,i} = {(G1,G2,G3,G4),(H1,H2,H3,H4),(I1,I2,I3,I4)}
Where the 1's correspond to COLOR, 2's correspond to SYMBOL, etc.
Any (Xi,Yi,Zi) is a 'triplet' if Xi, Yi, and Zi are all the same
or are all different.
We note that if (Xi, Yi, Zi) is a triplet for each 'i', then the corres-
sponding {x, y, z} is a set. We will now try to show that (Gi, Hi, Ii)
is a triplet for each 'i'.
Let's analyze this one feature ('i') at a time dropping the subscripts,
commas, spaces, and parenthesis from our notation:
(Thus, (Xi, Yi, Zi) simply becomes XYZ):
1. We know that each of: ABC DEF ADG BEH CFI are all triplets, because
they are assumed to be from sets.
2. We note that each feature has three members.
We label them with numeric tokens '0,' '1,' and '2.'
3. Any triplet must be 000, 111, 222, or some permutation of 012;
all others violate "The Magic Rule."
4. Note that the sum of the numeric tokens must be divisible by three
(any combination that isn't divisible by three is not a set).
This is equivalent to saying that the addition of each token
modulo 3 better be equal to zero for it to be a triplet.
So, we have, by assumptions:
5a. (A+B+C)%3 = (D+E+F)%3 = 0.
5b. (A+D+G)%3 = (B+E+H)%3 = (C+F+I)%3 = 0.
6. From (5a), (A+B+C+D+E+F)%3 = 0.
7. From (5b), (A+D+G+B+E+H+C+F+I)%3 = 0.
8. Subtract 6 from 7: (G+H+I)%3 = 0.
Then, GHI is a triplet, each (Gi, Hi, Ii) is a triplet, and {g,h,i} is a set.
=)
-Greg O /
------------------------X--cut-here--------------------------------------------
Gregory E. Dionne O \ Teradyne, Inc. dio...@icd.teradyne.com
Applications Engineer 321 Harrison Av. MS94 Voice: (617) 422-2603
Industrial/Consumer Division Boston, MA 02118-2238 Fax: (617) 422-2530
Matthew Daly
>From the rec.puzzles FAQ:
>"The rec.puzzles newsgroup is generally a friendly one..."
>
>Did you write that? Nah, you just maintain it, right?
I'll agree with the FAQ statement. The flames are probably a little more
pointed when they happen. But I subscribe to about 10 newsgroups, and this
is the only one that doesn't have a major flame war going on now. Flaming
on r.p is more like slapping a child's hand when he's playing with a fork
next to an electrical socket, where in other places it's more like a
personality contest.
> [portion of FAQ snipped]
>
>This clearly implies that this kind of puzzles are welcome here. Also,
>the FAQ says you should look through the archive before you _post_ a
>puzzle. Not that you have to look through it before you try to answer. I
>suggest you change the FAQ in accordance with the views you express here.
IMHO, it's probably a good idea that the FAQ reflect that r.p is not a great
medium for situation puzzles. The problem isn't with stating a problem and
the solution (in rot 13), which would be a great way to do it. The problem
is with the interactivity. These puzzles do generate a ton of traffic,
which every site gets in a different order, and it takes an abysmally long
time to solve a puzzle. (The puzzle in question ran a week with no one
guessing that he had committed suicide, which is an integral but VERY small
part of the solution.)
If people DID manage well-written, original SP's in r.p, though, it still
wouldn't clear up the problem. I fear that there would be a flood of newbies
posting "Hey, that reminds ME of a great puzzle about this guy who walks into
a bar and the bartender pulls a gun on him." In fact, this DID happen here
about a month ago when someone proposed the puzzle about the traffic warden
(for which we never received an official solution, I believe), and there was
a lot of space taken up by the hiccup puzzle. If puzzles of this type were
encouraged rather than barely tolerated ;>, the volume increase and signal-
to-noise decrease would be palpable.
And anyway, the sawdust puzzle IS in the FAQ, as 1.17.
>But what really annoys me is your worries about net economy. This
>newsgroup, like hundreds of other newsgroups, is totally useless, and any
>posting to any newsgroup, useless or not, takes net capacity away from
>(hundreds of thousands of) people who are not at all interested in that
>particular posting. So if you wanna live by your own rules, you should
>work towards the discontinuation of this newsgroup, and go out and buy
>yourself a new book of puzzles, or maybe publish one. Unless, of course,
>you think postings of why we're not upside down in mirrors or cute poems
>where the number of letters to every word represents pi, are of general
>interest to the internet community. (Something about pot, kettle and the
>absence of reflection of light.)
I don't get your point. There are alternatives between an anarchic free-for
all and a moderated newsgroup. I think r.p balances that well. It's true
that posts without e's and pi mnemonics get tiresome after the 1,000th time
you've seen them, but flaming people for being trite weighs the newsgroup
down more than their posts. I think of this as a place where a new user who
violates the FAQ gets flamed (gently) once, and then recognizes what a nice
place this actually is because we're all following the same rules.
>To everybody else, sorry for making a fool out of myself twice, I promise
>I won't prolong this thread by answering when y'all flame me.
The discussion is probably worthwhile as long as it's civil. So what does
it take to modify the FAQ?
>Tom Ekeberg
>Oslo, Norway
>
ObPuzzle: This is a situational puzzle not from the FAQ. The solution is not
rot-13d, so don't bother trying to think about it. The idea comes from
"Anacrostic Mysteries", whose author I'll drag up later, although the sitpuz
phrasing is unique to me.
Q: A man is lying dead, missing a hand.
Situation: A woman wishes to remarry, but her estranged transient husband will
not grant her a divorce. She shoots him, but notices that he is still wearing
their wedding band. Since she's planning to get married that day, she fears
that the police might deduce that she had a motive for the murder, but she
couldn't get the ring off his finger. In desperation, she cuts off his hand
to take the evidence with her.
Carl Witthoft
>Nobody's sure what these are really called, but here on rec.puzzles we
>call them "situation puzzles"."
>
No, the fact that we have a name for them in no way implies we like
them. You might as well say that since I know the meaning of the
word "bestiality" that I enjoy that particular activity.
(Wiseacre comments WILL be reposted if they are funny enuff)
--
Carl Witthoft @ Adaptive Optics Associates
ca...@aoainc.com 54 CambridgePark Drive, Cambridge,MA 02140 617-864-0201
S P Q R
Tom Maciukenas
Matthew Daly <da...@PPD.Kodak.COM> wrote:
>
>Q: A man is lying dead, missing a hand.
>
>Situation: A woman wishes to remarry, but her estranged transient husband will
>not grant her a divorce. She shoots him, but notices that he is still wearing
>their wedding band. Since she's planning to get married that day, she fears
>that the police might deduce that she had a motive for the murder, but she
>couldn't get the ring off his finger. In desperation, she cuts off his hand
>to take the evidence with her.
Hmm... The police know they're married, so the lack of a ring shouldn't help
her at all.
It would be much more satisfying to me if the killer was a simple thief who
noticed the enormous and ornate ring the man was wearing.
For added flavor, the man could be Sammy Davis Jr., or someone else known to
wear lots of expensive rings.
-ToMM