HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chris@questrel.com (Chris Cole)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Another plurals puzzle
Date: 15 Nov 92 02:00:02 GMT
Organization: Questrel, Inc.

In article <1992Nov14.044410.7840@cs.cornell.edu> karr@cs.cornell.edu (David Karr) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov08.153848.24287@eng.umd.edu>, rabino@eng.umd.edu (Michael Rabinovitz) writes:
>>
>>> What words, other than necropolis, have their plurals formed by
>>> dropping the final letter?
>
>I can't imagine that "necropoli" is the plural of "necropolis."
>"Necropolises," perhaps, or "necropolites" if you want to pretend
>(poorly) to be an ancient Greek.

Webster's Third has "necropoli" as one form of the plural of "necropolis."
Since I believe this is the only plural in English formed by dropping the
final "s," I decided to check with the editors to discover how good the
citations were for this usage.  It turns out they are quite good indeed,
spanning several decades and all from authoritative sources.  I can give
details if you're interested; just drop me a line.

As far as the original question goes, there are a number of italian words
where the final "o" is dropped to form a plural.  Webster's Third contains:
arpeggio
capriccio
carroccio
fascio
impresario
intarsio
latticinio
pasticcio
preludio
scenario
seraglio
solfeggio

There are a number of words (e.g., "jinni") where there is a variant
spelling sans the terminal letter (e.g., "jinn") and where the plural
is the same as the singular.  I don't think this is in keeping with the
spirit of the question.

I also find the following words in Webster's Third:

hemiepes n pl hemiepe 
:a dactylic tripody having a spondaic third foot or lacking the two
short syllables of the third foot

koruna n pl korun or koruny also korunas
:the basic monetary unit of Czechoslovakia

microstomia also microstomus n pl microstomias also microstomi 
:an abnormally small mouth 

samanid n pl samanids or samani 
:a member of a 9th and 10th century Persian dynasty ruling from Bokhara
and encouraging literature and art

volksdeutscher n pl volksdeutsche 
:a person of German ethnic origin long settled in a central or east
European country, repatriated for political reasons by the Nazi regime,
and expelled into West Germany after World II
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Billion-year survivability
Date: 23 Nov 1992 13:36 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: zeus.tamu.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

Joe.Slater@f351.n632.z3.fidonet.org (Joe Slater) writes...
>Satellites on a long orbit (as someone else suggested) sound good, but a
>billion-year orbit is one *heck* of a long time. It might also be hard to find
>them when they swing back. I don't think you could guarantee that any power
>source would be active after so long.

Worse, a billion year orbit would circle the galaxy a few times. You would
have to predict where our sun would be and I think stellar motions in the
galaxy are too chaotic.

>My best shot would be to draw your message on the Moon. Use finely divided
>carbon or something, and draw it in big letters. If you want to be cute, make
>the message fractal in nature, so that each segment of the message is made up
>of smaller messages. Even after crater formation you should be left with enough
>to convey the message.

Imagine Europeans from the year 1493 trying to send a message to us by
'carving' it in the earth of the new world. In a billion years the moon
will have experienced over a thousand separate waves of colonization.
And many more wars.

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: mag@cs.uiuc.edu (Tom Magliery)
Subject: Re: Anagram generator wanted...
Reply-To: mag@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 04:34:54 GMT

bickford@jimmy.dfci.harvard.edu (Paul Bickford) writes:
>>I am interested infinding an anagram generator, too, but I am looking for
>>on the Macintosh platform. Anyone have any leads?
>>
>Check out "Ars Magna" on sumex-aim. I believe it's in the "games"
>directory, although it could be in "misc." It has a really kludgy
>interface, but it works pretty darn well.

It's in the "game" directory.  It is worth noting that the program
doesn't like to run under System 7 (at least not on my Quadra 700 :-(
-- I believe somebody else said it ran, but a little quirkily), and as
Mike Morton (its author) notes, it's not a "mac application" in the
sense that it has no menus, etc.

There was an article in comp.sys.mac.games (I think) just a couple
days ago which included a personal correspondence from Mike Morton.
He said, among other things, that you should ignore the request for a
shareware fee.  He is satisfied with what he has received already.

If you are still interested in contacting him, he gave an email
address.  I *think* it was morton@proponent.com, but you should check
c.s.m.g to be sure.  Checking there would prevent you from asking some
question that he only very recently answered, too.

mag
From: cvadsavi@vmsa.is.csupomona.edu (Carl R. Knecht)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Mastermind - some EASY questions.
Date: 20 Nov 92 15:43:00 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic University, Pomona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <BxzoJH.7Gn@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>, wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor) writes...
>These questions aren't just easy - you can hardly get them wrong!
>  
>1. What is the best thing to do when following a very slow car ?

..er, pass it!

>2. What is the term for a single run through a compiler ?

PURE LUCK!!

>3. What is a common slang term for an implicit sexual suggestion ?

[too many to list here....]

>4. What is the most usual method of obtaining the ball in basketball ?

Taking it way from another person or having it given to you

>5. What is the most commonly heard call in contract bridge ?

Don't know, don't care....

>Good luck.

Thanks.  I need all the luck I can get!!!!!

yub yub, Carl
From: radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (David G Radcliffe)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Trig. inequality
Date: 21 Nov 1992 04:19:59 GMT
Organization: UW-Milwaukee Math Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4

Show that (sin x)^(sin x) < (cos x)^(cos x) when 0 < x < pi/4.

--
David Radcliffe                                
radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Organisation: European Space Technology Centre (E.S.T.E.C)
Date: Wednesday, 18 Nov 1992 11:30:27 CET
From: <MATTWOOD@ESTEC.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Great turtle race *SPOILER*

 Ok, here's my effort.

 First race : 1st - Ed
              2nd - Alfred
              3rd - Bob
              4th - Dave
              5th - Carl
              6th - Frank

 Second race: 1st - Alfred
              2nd - Ed
              3rd - Dave
              4th - Bob
              5th - Frank
              6th - Carl

 Gold : Alfred & Ed for coming 1st and 2nd each.
Silver: Bob & Dave for coming 3rd and 4th each.
Bronze: Carl & Frank for coming 5th and 6th each.

 BUT the main question is where did Donatello come?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A .sig is a sign of a sick mind.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: tony@nexus.yorku.ca (Tony Wallis)
Subject: Re: Billion-year survivability
Originator: tony@nexus.yorku.ca
Organization: York University  Department of Computer Science
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:45:32 GMT

[ bob vesterman hates using those inane "smilie" things .. ]

OK, Bob, here's one for you ..

What's it called when 
[1] A posts something deliberate absurd (e.g. envelopes surviving
    10**9 years) - so absurd that smilies are totally redundant.
    [ Wry/dry/droll humour. ]
[2] B follows up with something equally absurd - so absurd that only
    _superficially_ would it appear that B has taken A literally.
    [ B wryly/dryly/drolly playing along with A. ]
[3] A replies sarcastically that he should have included smilies,
    implying B is thick.
    [ Thereby, implying that A is thick. ]
[4] B explains it all to A publically in four easy steps.

Note: the above is 100% smiley-free.

Right back at yer ..
--
tony@nexus.yorku.ca = Tony Wallis, York University, Toronto, Canada

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: eric@Turing.ORG (Eric Prestemon)
Subject: Masquerade Solution (spoiler)
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 21:52:48 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.091948.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> mdorfman@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
>Is anyone familiar with the children's book "Masquerade" by Kit Williams?
...
>has anyone here solved any of the puzzles in the book?  Does anyone know
>what the clues were that led the finder to the treasure?
I bought the solution explanation. Here is the solution to the main
puzzle in the the book, which, by itself, was intended to give exact
directions to the hare. Unfortunately, the person who solved the riddle
missed getting the hare by about a day. 
   The person who did dig it up just did some good detective work (and
some puzzle solving).

The picture of Sir Isaac Newton and the world is the key. From the colors
of the puppets' rings, and some magic squre somewhere, you can put the
limbs of the puppets in numerical order. (Something like L hand, R hand,
L foot, R foot, although maybe not that order). Then, each picture uses
the limbs of all the people and animals to point to letters on the border.

That's the basics, figureing out the whole thing from this semi-
explanation should be easy.

I'm still mad I didn't get this, I was very close to it, and had guessed
both that there was a word per page, and that the letters around the edges
were how those words were described. Oh, well, I didn't get it. =)

Later,
Eric
-- 
Eric Prestemon (ecp2z@virginia.edu) 
"Jesus saves! Gretzky steals! Gretzky scores!"
From: RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Billion-year survivability
Date: 22 Nov 92 22:29:53 GMT
 <1992Nov22.214532.26970@newshub.ccs.yorku.ca>

whatever.  i just don't think it's wry/dry/droll or whatever you want to
call it to explain why something that you saw as wry/dry/droll humor
wouldn't work.  i think the more likely scenario is that you didn't
actually perceive it as humor.  but if you want to say that you did,
fine with me, whatever.

bob vesterman.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: amichail@r-node.gts.org (Ashraf Michail)
Subject: Re: Formulae for pi
Organization: R-node Public Access UNIX Information System (416-249-5366)
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 19:34:00 GMT

This is the best algorithm I know for generating PI:
 
y0=SQRT(2) -1                       
a0=6-4*SQRT(2)
 
y1=(1-(1-y0^4)^(1/4))/(1+(1-y0^4)^(1/4))
a1=((1+y1)^4)*a0-(2^3)(y1(1+y1+(y1)^2)
 
y2=(1-(1-y1^4)^(1/4))/(1+(1-y1^4)^(1/4))
a2=((1+y2)^4)*a1-(2^5)(y2(1+y2+(y2)^2)
 
and so on ...
 
1/(a15) will give more than two billion digits of PI..
Organisation: European Space Technology Centre (E.S.T.E.C)
Date: Wednesday, 18 Nov 1992 11:39:31 CET
From: <MATTWOOD@ESTEC.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Sequence
Distribution: world

 1
 11
 21
 1211
 111221
 ?

 312211 - isn't this in the FAQ?
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: ghazel@eskimo.com (Geoff Hazel)
Subject: Re: Songs containing states
Organization: >>> Eskimo North (206)-FOR-EVER <<<
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 19:26:52 GMT


There is an old song for Vermont; I believe it is called
"Moonlight over Vermont" or something like that that references
Moonlight and Vermont.  Used to be an old "standard" tune, circa
the big band era.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Gotta have enought lines!
From: cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Sequence
Date: 17 Nov 92 17:50:59 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <19921116.170715143595.NETNEWS@BLEKUL11>, Andre' Pirard
<pirard@vm1.ulg.ac.be> writes:
|> 1
|> 11
|> 21
|> 1211
|> 111221
|> ?

The answer is 49.61% 1s, 31.97% 2s, and 18.42% 3s :-) See the FAQ.

Chris Thompson
JANET:    cet1@uk.ac.cam.phx
Internet: cet1@phx.cam.ac.uk
From: jes@downey.dev.macsch.com (John Schiermeier)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Great turtle race
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:22:41 GMT
Organization: The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation

In article <1992Nov12.192101.13105@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
>It was the day for the great turtle races, and Alfred, Bob, Carl, Dave,
>Ed and Frank shuffled up to the starting line.  There would be two
>races, and all of them were very excited (as excited as turtles can be!)
>They would average each turtles place to find their overall rank..
>
>In the first race:
>   Alfred came in before Bob or Carl did
>   Dave came in two places before Frank
>   Three turtles ran times in between Carl and Ed
>
>In the second race:
>   Alfred came in before Bob or Carl did, and ran better this race than before
>   Dave came in two places before Frank
>   Three turtles ran times in between Carl and Ed
>
>Quite peculiar!  Yet no turtle placed the same in both races.  Happily,
>after they computed their overall rank for the day every turtle got
>a medal.. gold, silver or bronze for 1,2 or 3rd.
>
>  What were the placings for each turtle in both races?  Who got the gold?

Hope this ctrl-L thing works here:

The first race:   E A B D C F
The second race:  A C D B F E

The medals:  gold, A; silver, B C D E; bronze, F.

There were two other possible outcomes (E D A F C B and D E F A C B),
but there seemed to be only one combination of two within the four
that led to each turtle finishing differently and only three overall
scores.

John
From: berninge@cs.purdue.edu (James Berninger)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 17 Nov 1992 12:20:18 -0500
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
NNTP-Posting-Host: csgrad2.cs.purdue.edu

In article <1992Nov17.091948.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> mdorfman@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
>Is anyone familiar with the children's book "Masquerade" by Kit Williams?
>The author created a jeweled Hare, made out of gold, and buried it in
>England.  The book contains clues as to where the Hare was buried.
>
>I know that the puzzle was solved some years ago, and I even remember where 
>the are was buried (from newspaper reports, etc.)  What I want to know is:
>has anyone here solved any of the puzzles in the book?  Does anyone know
>what the clues were that led the finder to the treasure?

When it was publicized that it was found, some of the more prominant
clues were explained.  I only remember two:
	"I am as old as the erath, as cold as the earth, and in the
		earth am I -- ONE OF SIX TO EIGHT."
	One of the pictures was a dancing pair of jesters (I think)
		superimposed on a picture of the earth.  Surrounding
		the earth was a calendar strip (each day of the
		year, in a line, framing the picture).  One end of
		the male jester's sceptre intercepted March 21.
From these clues, and others I assume, we were supposed to be able
to deduce that the hare was buried near the grave of Catherine of
Aragon (number ONE OF the SIX women TO marry Henry the EIGHTh), at
the spot where the shadow of the cross on her stone lay at noon on
March 21.  Or something very similar to this...

Jim Berninger                   ______ "This is no 'Whoops!'  This is
berninge@cs.purdue.edu          \    /  an 'Aaaaaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!'"
B0.2 f(~) w- c- g k? s- e r- p   \  /   - Harvey ("Arnold") Fierstein
Green Lantern Fan, Extraordinaire \/      "Torch Song Trilogy"
From: blom@husc15.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Re: SURWDKGO
Date: 21 Nov 92 19:04:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc15.1992Nov21.140444.17660
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

What you are saying about pi seems incorrect to me: just because pi is infinite
does not mean it contains any arbitrary integer sequence.  In other words, it
might require some really funky manipulation to convert that sequence to one in
pi.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: umahf69@ma.ic.ac.uk (Nairo Aparicio)
Subject: Gale and Bridges (correction)
Organization: Imperial College Mathematics Department
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 19:15:37 GMT

In this corrected version of the problem, you may see how the bridges
are arranged "before" the gale.

Actually, it looks all right in emacs, but not in the editor I am using now,
anyway, if you see the bridges in one of the possibles states they may have
after the gale, try to figure it out (I drew some dots to help you).

Hello friends

Here there is a problem published on one of the boards of this department:

"In a certain wide river, there are 6 islands joined to each other and the banks
by 13 bridges, as shown below.   Unfortunately if there is a gale, the bridges
will each collapse with independent probability 1/2.   What is the probability
that the river will be crossable after the gale?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------
..................|........|........|...........................
..................|........|........|..........................
..................O--------O--------O..island..................
..................|........|........|..............river.....
..................O--------O--------O.......................
..................|........|........|.......................
..................|........|........|....bridge.............
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not know if it has been posted before, I am new here.   Anyway,  the answer
can be proved straight forward without any hard calculation.   

If you think this is to easy for you,  try to solve it assuming that each bridge
will collapse with independent probability   "p"  where  0<=p<=1.

I have the answer for both problems, I will post them sometime in the future.

					Nairo Aparicio


Thanks to James Treacy for pointing out to me the problem with the correct
spacing in the picture.








Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
From: ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair)
Subject: Re: Bronstein vs DT II - Fourth Game
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:32:54 GMT

dimmen@hsr.no (Kjetil Dimmen) writes:

>        20 20 game

>Move    White                   Black
>        scratchy (DT II)        David Bronstein
>----    -----                   -----
>1       P/e2-e4 (0:04)         P/d7-d5 (2:40)

   Bronstein once took an enormous ( > 20 minutes) amount of time replying
to Boleslavsky's first move in an important match.  Apparently, he hasn't
changed.
From: RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: pawn promotion
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:44:55 GMT

i've wondered this myself.  the only possibility i can think of where
you might want to promote to a rook or bishop instead of a queen is this
(i don't know if there's a "real" situation where this would happen,
though):

    you've got your queen.  you've got a pawn on the seventh rank.
    it's your move.  if you push your pawn, your opponent has a
    choice between taking your queen and taking your newly promoted
    piece.  you see a (non-obvious) forced mate using the promoted
    piece, and it only requires a rook's moves, or a bishop's moves,
    not both.  then maybe you would consider underpromoting to a
    rook, hoping that your opponent will not notice the forced mate,
    and so will take the queen instead of the promoted piece.

    the problem here is that your opponent will wonder why you
    didn't promote to a queen, and start looking for forced mates
    using the promoted piece...

bob vesterman.
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
From: juffi@ai.univie.ac.at (Johannes Fuernkranz)
Subject: Re: Living Chess
Organization: Dept. Med.Cybernetics & Artif.Intelligence, Univ.Vienna, Austria, Europe
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 11:32:30 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.175806.26328@njitgw.njit.edu> jpk2581@hertz.njit.edu (joseph p kisenwether apmt stnt) writes:
>
>Suppose you're playing a game of living chess where when a peice
>moves on to the same square as an enemy peice, in stead of 
>capturing that peice, the two people hold some contest (say
>a fight to the death) to see who holds the square. You lose
>when you're king is beaten in such a contest.

How about deciding who holds the square with a game of chess?

					Juffi

-- 
Johannes Fuernkranz                                    +43-1-5336112(Tel)
Austrian Research Inst. for Artificial Intelligence    +43-1-5320652(Fax)
Schottengasse 3, A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe     juffi@ai.univie.ac.at 
--------------- "Life is too short for Chess." -- Byron -----------------
From: jeff@econBerkeley.EDU (Jeffrey C. Ely)
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Tournament Report from Berkeley Quads last Saturday, 11/14...
Date: 19 Nov 1992 22:58:28 GMT
Organization: Econometrics Laboratory, U. C. Berkeley
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: emily3.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Nov19.202330.13214@cis.uab.edu>, sloan@cis.uab.edu (Kenneth Sloan) writes:
|> In article <1eglfnINNkbm@agate.berkeley.edu> ding@wish-bone.berkeley.edu (Howard Ding) writes:
|> >In article <1992Nov19.022558.11746@cis.uab.edu> sloan@cis.uab.edu (Kenneth Sloan) writes:
|> >>In article <1992Nov19.004603.23878@pony.Ingres.COM> jrb@Ingres.COM (John Black) writes:
|> >>>
|> >>>...I was the lowest rated player at 1673...
|> >>>...  This meant I would get 2 black's and a white (great). 
|> >>
|> >>This doesn't follow - te TD should have (and probably did) toss for
|> >>colors in the last round of a quad.
|> >Actually, I've been to the Berkeley Quads, and they do NOT
|> >toss for color in the last round, although they obviously 
|> >should.
|> 
|> Right - they should either toss for color in the last round, or shuffle
|> the four cards.

No.  They should do whatever they wish to.  
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess,connect.audit
From: michaeld@ibmpcug.co.uk (Michael Duffy)
Subject: Email game wanted
X-Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author
	alone and may not represent the views of the IBM PC User Group.
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 17:28:58 GMT


Hi all,

I'm looking to play a few email games, and
would appreciate any volunteers (Internet mail)!

Thanks,
Mike Duffy

Internet mail: michaeld@central.susx.ac.uk
Date: Saturday, 21 Nov 1992 15:04:45 EST
From: <RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Exploding the Myth: GM Benjamin speaks on F-S II (_Chow_ upload)
Distribution: rec.games.chess

ah, those double negatives.  make that, "don't even try to tell me
you don't think bobby WAS (not wasn't) off his rocker 20 years ago."

bob vesterman.