HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Subject: Re: ducks and foxes
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: ducks, foxes
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 09:46:00 GMT

keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes...
>>     A duck is swimming about in a circular pond.  A ravenous fox (who cannot 
>>swim) is roaming the edges of the pond, waiting for the duck to come close.  
>>The fox can run four times faster than the duck can swim.  In order to escape, 
>>the duck must swim to the edge of the pond before flying away.  Assume that 
>>the duck can't fly until it has reached the edge of the pond.
>
>A friend (Hyong Lee) and I were bored, so we thought about this for a second.
>Let's divide the pond into two sections.  The first, extending 1/4 the
>radius from the center, is a zone in which the duck can always keep the
>center between it and the fox (it can spiral out, or whatever).  Now, the
>duck can travel the circumference of this boundry (1/4 of the radius from
>the center) in the same time it will take the fox to travel the circumference
>of the pond. 
>Now, some of you may be saying that the duck will never reach the boundry,
>still keeping the center of the pond between it and the fox, since the spiral
>would only converge to the boundry, as the circumnavigating time of the
>duck approached the fox's.

Excercise: show that the duck's path inside the region is a semicircular arc.

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
From: dsbb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D. SPENCER BEECHER)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: An: Homographs
Date: 14 Aug 92 20:01:38 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Aug13.204913.5639@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, rad2r@uvacs.cs.Virg
inia.EDU (Robert DeLine) writes:
>
>I friend recently asked me for two homographs (words spelled the same
>but pronounced differently) where one was an adjective and the other a
>noun.  He swears there's only one.  I don't believe him, but I've yet to
>come up with another example.  There are plenty noun/verb pairs but few
>noun/adjective pairs.
>
>Below I've written the pair he told me.  Can someone come up with
>another?
>
>
>Rob DeLine
>Computer Science, University of Virginia
>deline@Virginia.EDU
>
>
>polish (n) e.g. shoe polish
>Polish (adj)
>

Sure, Rob,

How about lead?
  Secretariat took the lead, and held it throughout the race.
  Lead paint is unhealthy.
-- 
                   _ _     _ _     _ _
  -Spence         [O.O]   )x.x(   )O.O(
                    O       O      -*-
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: bjornmu@idt.unit.no (Bj|rn P. Munch)
Subject: Re: How come? puzzles (SPOILER and new one)
Organization: Div. of CS & Telematics, Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 15:06:27 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.105412.28994@dde.dk>, ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) writes:
|> ---- New one: -----------
|> 
|> A man is pushing his car. He stops in front of a hotel and goes
|> bankrupt. How come?

POSSIBLY A MINI-SPOILER






























I'm not really going to spoil this (it's a classic), rather de-spoil.

The puzzles is even more cryptic if you only say:

"As the car stopped in front of the hotel, its owner went bankrupt"

I've witnessed a guy spending two hours to figure this one out.  :-)

---
Bj|rn P. Munch               | Dept. of Comp. Science & Telematics,
Bjoern.P.Munch@idt.unit.no   | Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH),
PhD Student                  | N-7034 Trondheim, Norway
 (some filler words here)    | Fingerable addr:  bjornmu@multe.idt.unit.no
From: skataba@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Sam Atabaki)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: 1s and 2s series
Date: 15 Aug 92 00:44:13 GMT
Reply-To: skataba@PacBell.COM (Sam Atabaki)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

In article <ueLgPB1w164w@cellar.org> kml@cellar.org (Lazlo Hoover Toth) writes:
>
>I have an answer to this one, but I'd like an independent confirmation.
>
>Supply the next two entries in the series and the rules:
>
>1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, ..., ...
>
The next two numbers in sequence must be:  312211 and 13112221

Rules follow........


The series starts with "1" and each sunsequent number tells how many
times, in the previous number in sequence, a particular digit is
repeated without interruption.

For example: the second number in the series is 11 because there is
one "1" in the previous number in the sequence (ie. 1).
The 3rd number is 21 because there are two "1"s in 11.
The 4th number is 1211 because there is one "2" and one "1" IN 21.
etc...  
Interesting sequence.

-Sam
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Subject: Re: ducks and foxes
Keywords: ducks, foxes
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:40:11 GMT

dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE) writes:

>keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes...
>>>     A duck is swimming about in a circular pond.  A ravenous fox (who cannot 
>>>swim) is roaming the edges of the pond, waiting for the duck to come close.  
>>>The fox can run four times faster than the duck can swim.  In order to escape, 
>>>the duck must swim to the edge of the pond before flying away.  Assume that 
>>>the duck can't fly until it has reached the edge of the pond.
>>
>>A friend (Hyong Lee) and I were bored, so we thought about this for a second.
>>Let's divide the pond into two sections.  The first, extending 1/4 the
>>radius from the center, is a zone in which the duck can always keep the
>>center between it and the fox (it can spiral out, or whatever).  Now, the
>>duck can travel the circumference of this boundry (1/4 of the radius from
>>the center) in the same time it will take the fox to travel the circumference
>>of the pond. 
>>Now, some of you may be saying that the duck will never reach the boundry,
>>still keeping the center of the pond between it and the fox, since the spiral
>>would only converge to the boundry, as the circumnavigating time of the
>>duck approached the fox's.

>Excercise: show that the duck's path inside the region is a semicircular arc.

Well, it depends on what the fox does.  or are you assuming that both the
duck and fox use the best strategy possible?

keith













Organization: Masters student, Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 11:21:56 -0400 
From: Simon Szykman <ss8c+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Virtual reality puzzle
	<1992Aug18.131409.6198@porthos.cc.bellcore.com>

Excerpts from netnews.rec.puzzles: 18-Aug-92 Re: Virtual reality puzzle
Alex F. Dietz@bellcore.c (823)

> This is the classic "Evil Genius" problem pondered by Descartes.  Namely, how
> do I know that I'm not imprisoned somewhere by an evil genius who's feeding
> stimuli to my senses that simulate reality?  He also pondered how to
> distinguish
> dream reality from waking reality.  In the end, he concluded that his 
> consciousness was the only thing he could be sure of.  In other words,
> "I think,
> therefore I am."


How could he be sure of it?  Why not "I think that I think, therefore I
think I am"?
I always thought "I think therefore I am" was more of an axiom or a  postulate
than something he was sure of.

					- Simon
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com (Bob Marshall)
Subject: Re: Homographs
Reply-To: marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: LMSC, Sunnyvale, California
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 16:29:42 GMT

In article <6570@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>, hamel@primate.wisc.edu (Ray Hamel) writes:
>> I friend recently asked me for two homographs (words spelled the same
>> but pronounced differently) where one was an adjective and the other a
>> noun.  He swears there's only one.  I don't believe him, but I've yet to
>> come up with another example.  
>
>How about BASS?
>
>BASS (noun) --the fish
>BASS (adjective) -- as in bass violin

Yes, and you might catch that bass while you are out fishing in
your dingy dingy. But if it's too minute, you'd throw it back
in a minute!

(Dingy, the noun, is a variation of dinghy).

=============================================================================
Bob Marshall                     \\     "It ain't age
Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.     \\     That makes me look this way
Sunnyvale, CA                      \\    It ain't the years, boys,
marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com\\   It's the miles"
"I tell the truth 'cept when I lie"  \\     - Chris LeDoux
=============================================================================
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: debbie@visix.com (Debra Fetter)
Subject: Re: Slaughter of the Innocents
Keywords: puzzle Bible New Testament
Reply-To: debbie@visix.com (Debra Fetter)
Organization: Visix Software Inc., Reston, VA
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 19:06:25 GMT

In article <12636@grayt>, grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray) writes:

|> and now the other golden oldie
|> .
|> How many animals of each kind did Moses take with him on the ark?
> -- 
|> i.sinature

It was Noah and the ark, not Moses.

Debbie
From: jesse@uts.amdahl.com (Jesse Mundis)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: rot13 word pairs
Date: 20 Aug 92 01:28:02 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

schnitzi@cs.ucf.edu (Mark Schnitzius) writes:

>This is actually going on in talk.bizarre but
>belongs here.  What is the longest word that
>rot13's to another word?

>The best so far is "nowhere/abjurer".

Gee, and I thought I was the only one weird enough to pipe /usr/dict through
rot13 and spell, and back again.  That is the longest pair I found too.
Although, there are two other interesting sets.. tang and gnat (pallindromic
rot13 pairs)  and my personal favorite  Terra and Green.

(and no, I don't have too much free time to kill.. I discovered this when I
was back in college, and DID have too much time on my hands.  :-)

Jesse

-- 
    Jesse Mundis     |      Amdahl Corporation       | Freedom is just chaos
jesse@uts.amdahl.com | 1250 East Arques Ave  M/S 316 | with better lighting.
   (408) 746-4796    |   Sunnyvale,  CA 94088-3470   |    -Alan Dean Foster 

#include <Disclaimer.standard>
From: skataba@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Sam Atabaki)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: ALCOHOL+... ALCOHOL=HANGOVER Solution
Date: 15 Aug 92 01:01:12 GMT
Organization: Pacific * Bell

Here are the only solutions for the

   ALCOHOL + ALCOHOL + ... + ALCOHOL = HANGOVER

problem posted a while ago. Answers were naturally generated
by a program. I limited the number of drinks to 100.

1. "A" is zero:        34 * 0896368 = 30476512
2. "A" is not zero:    27 * 3451914 = 93201678
 
-Sam
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Subject: Re: ducks and foxes (SPOILER)
Keywords: ducks, foxes
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:44:28 GMT

stein@hal.nta.no (Stein Kulseth FBA) writes:

>|> >     The question is, can the duck escape?  Why or why not?
>|> 
>|> Suppose the fox runs at a speed 23mph and the duck swims at 5mph. Can
>|> the duck escape now?

>Suppose the fox to duck speed ratio is a (a=4, in the original puzzle,
>a = 23/5 = 4.6 here)

>Now the duck may swim out to (not including) a radius of r/a, while still
>keeping the fox exactly opposite the pond centre. Now for the duck to
>be able to escape we must have 4*(r-r/a) < pi*r <=> a < 4/(4-pi) ~= 4.65979

>So, still no duck!!

That's not right.  If a > pi + 1 = 4.14... then the fox can catch the duck.
Your 4 should be an "a."

keith
From: marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com (Bob Marshall)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Slaughter of the Innocents
Date: 19 Aug 92 22:19:49 GMT
Reply-To: marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: LMSC, Sunnyvale, California

In article <12636@grayt>, grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray) writes:
>
>and now the other golden oldie
>..
>How many animals of each kind did Moses take with him on the ark?

Dunno. My bible doesn't contain any references to Moses ever boarding
an ark. If he did, I doubt that he took any animals with him.
=============================================================================
Bob Marshall                     \\     "It ain't age
Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.     \\     That makes me look this way
Sunnyvale, CA                      \\    It ain't the years, boys,
marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com\\   It's the miles"
"I tell the truth 'cept when I lie"  \\     - Chris LeDoux
=============================================================================
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: ahw@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Arthur Watson)
Subject: Re: NUMBER CREATION USING FOUR "2"s
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 01:44:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug22.010928.20658@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> skataba@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Sam Atabaki) writes:
>
>Creating numbers using four "2"s and any of mathematical
>operators and symbols
>such as:                                 __
>          +, -, *, /, .(dot), ^(power), V   (square root),
>                          _
>          ! (factorial), .2 (decimal repeatition), ...
>
>                                 _
>I have solved 99 with 3 2's: 22/.2   Any ideas for 99?

Rewriting 22 with three "2"s in the above gives:
            _
((2+2)!-2)/.2

>-Sam Atabaki

-- 
-Arthur Watson 
ahw@cs.princeton.edu, mccabe!arthur@uunet.uu.net
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: karr@cs.cornell.edu (David Karr)
Subject: Re: WEST <SPOILER>
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:33:27 GMT

In article <9817@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM> tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Trevor German) writes:
>
>	An aircraft sets off from city A in a straight line due west
>	at a ground speed of 250mph. How long till it reaches city
>	B 2000  miles due west. Both cities are in Canada.

<SPOILER>



By "straight line" I'll assume you mean a great circle route, which is
as straight as you can get while following the surface of the Earth.
A truly straight line would soon take the plane out into space, or at
any rate above its service ceiling.

When you say "sets off ... due west" I take it that this refers to the
initial direction of travel only.  A great circle route does not
follow any line of latitude except at the equator, where there are no
Canadian cities.

Then the answer is "never."  The great circle route intersects the
initial city's line of latitude only at that city, and lies to the
south everywhere else.  Since the destination is on the same line of
latitude, the plane never reaches it.




Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,talk.bizarre
From: sean@stat.tamu.edu (Sean Barrett)
Subject: Re: rot13 word pairs
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Distribution: rec
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 01:51:57 GMT

merlyn@digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy) writes:
>>In article <schnitzi.714245207@eola.cs.ucf.edu> of rec.puzzles, schnitzi@cs.ucf.edu (Mark Schnitzius) writes:
>>>belongs here.  What is the longest word that
>>>rot13's to another word?
>>>The best so far is "nowhere/abjurer".

>irk/vex which are rot13 pairs and synonyms
>tang/gnat which are rot13 and palindrome pairs
>Also, "the rug gary lent" rot13 turns into "gur eht tnel yrag" (read backwards)

The name "chupchup", which belongs to a MUD character, is
a rot13 pair backwards.

>Here's my program from the International Obfuscated C Code Contest, 1989

One winner in 1991 was a rot13 one-liner; the hint file for
it had several sample sentences which rot13'd to other sentences.
I believe the file was "fine.hint"; the IOCCC releases are available
from ftp.uu.net.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: stevena@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Alexander)
Subject: Re: Nerd words
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 08:25:39 GMT

In article <l9aiv7INNat@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> linden@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden) writes:
>I am looking for two words that, when catenated together
>form a third word, with opposite meaning to the first word.

Well, this isn't great in meeting your specifications, but I still
really like it:

    PRONOUN + CEMENT = PRONOUNCEMENT

The resulting word contrasts somewhat with the first word.
(I'm still waiting to play this on someone at Scrabble.)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steven Alexander
Comp Sci grad student                           stevena@cs.berkeley.edu
& non-practicing lawyer extraordinaire
{I'm really wonderful at not practicing}
From: gah2468@bcsaic.boeing.com (Geoffrey Hazel)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Virtual reality puzzle
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:46:11 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle

In article <1992Aug18.131409.6198@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> afd@bellcore.com writes:
>In article 28527@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu, dsinclai@nyx.cs.du.edu (David Sinclair) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug18.002339.17501@hellgate.utah.edu> 
> 
>> Perhaps this should be in some philosophy group, but I don't think there
>> is one... I believe that Alan Turing and Alonzo CHurch found that any 
>> phenomenon that could be simulated could be simulated by ANY universal
>> Turing machine. 
>
>This is the classic "Evil Genius" problem pondered by Descartes.  Namely, how
>do I know that I'm not imprisoned somewhere by an evil genius who's feeding
>stimuli to my senses that simulate reality?  He also pondered how to distinguish
>dream reality from waking reality.  In the end, he concluded that his 
>consciousness was the only thing he could be sure of.  In other words, "I think,
>therefore I am."
>
>-A Dietz
>Bellcore, Morristown


Quote from Woody Allen:

"REALITY is the only place I know of where you can get a good steak"
-- 
Geoff Hazel                  | Haven't you got some real work to get 
gah2468@bcsaic.boeing.com    | done now?
From: jaw@cs.arizona.edu (Jim Wilson)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Riddles
Date: 18 Aug 92 06:00:10 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson

In article <1992Aug17.172956.23286@Princeton.EDU> shari@room.Princeton.EDU (Shari L. Landes) writes:
>Here's some of by own...
>

>48     S in the C U S

states in the continental US
  [ maybe "48 S in the L 48" is better ]

>2      E in W   [If you get that, you're doubleplusgood]

elements in water

--
   _              
  | | _  _ _     |	Everybody complains of his memory, and
 _| || ||  \ \   |	nobody complains of his judgement.
 \_/ |_||_\_\_|  |				- La Rochefoucauld
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,talk.bizarre
From: dsinclai@nyx.cs.du.edu (David Sinclair)
Subject: Re: Slaughter of the Innocents
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Keywords: puzzle Bible New Testament
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 11:29:39 GMT

In article <2695@nlsun1.oracle.nl> asymes@nl.oracle.com (Andy Symes) writes:
>This is one I saw in an old puzzle book.
>
>After King Herod had completed his sluaghter of the innocents, all the little
>children were buried in a mound of earth with just their feet sticking out.
>How do we know which were boys and which were girls???
>
>Flame me, not the net.
>
>Andy Symes.
>Standard disclaimers etc, apply.

Herod didn't kill girls, did he ?


Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: mueller@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Carl Mueller)
Subject: Re: Yet another prime puzzle ! (hard one : ))
Keywords: primes
Reply-To: mueller@schaefer.UUCP (Carl Mueller)
Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin Dept. of Mathematics
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 13:03:41 GMT

In article <chepan.713587562@gsusgi1.gsu.edu> chepan@gsusgi1.gsu.edu (Parthasarathy Nambi) writes:
>
>	Let N = 3^(3^p) + 2
>	where p is a prime.  If p = 5, then N is a prime.
>	Can you find any other N that is a prime in this series.
>	Warning: These numbers are very BIG indeed!
>
>	P. Nambi

Is this a puzzle or simply an excuse for those with MAPLE and Mathematica to
put their favorite program to use?

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: Re: New Homograph
Date: 16 Aug 92 21:09:09 MDT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept

>molar-n:  back tooth
>molar-adj:  relating to a mole of solute in a liter
>of solution

Back when I was an undergrad in chemistry.... we used to call a 5 molar
solution "5 moles" or "5 molers" but would speak of "molarity- with a long
"a" there" of a solution.  So, it was both.  But then again, we said whatever
we wanted, because we were just trying to communicate and we didn't really
notice what was "correct". Perhaps we had a pidgeon language for chemistry
there, between us.



-- The above comments may or may not represent any opinion, but if they did
then I would be lying if they didn't I would be lying to say that they were
but this whole construction is a lie so figure it out for yourself whose
opinion it is, if anyones.
From: gah2468@bcsaic.boeing.com (Geoffrey Hazel)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Digit Replashement Puzzlesh
Summary: spoiler
Date: 12 Aug 92 23:13:29 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle

In article <9710@harrier.ukc.ac.uk>, rt@ukc.ac.uk (R.W.Thearle) writes:
> 
> Since you've had so much fun with RATE * TIME = DISTANCE; try the following:
> 
> 
> 	While at a party, a mathematically-minded drinker was chatting
> 	about number puzzles, when he noticed that
> 
> 		ALCOHOL + ALCOHOL + ALCOHOL + ... + ALCOHOL = HANGOVER
> 
> 	contained precisely 10 different letters, and so might produce
> 	a valid sum after consistently replacing each letter with a different
> 	decimal digit. The question was - how many drinks were needed before
> 	it could be done?
> 
> 	Having solved this (and drunk the required number of drinks)
> 	the party-goer's brain was getting rather befuddled, and
> 	incapable of remembering that numbers are not supposed to start
> 	with zero. Suddenly, another solution presented itself; and gave
> 	an excuse to have a few more drinks.
> 
> 	Unfortunately, by morning, the mother of all hangovers prevented
> 	remembering either the solutions, or how many drinks had been
> 	consumed. Can you assist?
> 
> 					Roy


** SPOILER ALERT **
































First part of puzzle:

3451914 * 27 drinks = 93201678
A=3
L=4
C=5
O=1
H=9
N=2
G=0
V=6
E=7
R=8

I don't quite get the conditions of the second half of the puzzle.
-- 
Geoff Hazel                  | Haven't you got some real work to get 
gah2468@bcsaic.boeing.com    | done now?
From: kml@cellar.org (Lazlo Hoover Toth)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: 1s and 2s series
Date: 13 Aug 92 19:02:29 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system


I have an answer to this one, but I'd like an independent confirmation.

Supply the next two entries in the series and the rules:

1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, ..., ...



This message may not be rebroadcast without the express written consent of 
the Baltimore Orioles and Major League Baseball.  Send $2 for transcripts to
  kml%cellar@tredysvr.tredydev.unisys.com  - My other account is a Mercedes.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles