HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mallen@wyvern.twuug.com (Marc Allen)
Subject: Re: Oxymoron-->New Thread
Organization: Tidewater UNIX Users Group
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 18:27:17 GMT

jimhsu@athena.mit.edu (Jimmy M.D. Hsu) writes:

>But notice how the word 'prefix'
>has a prefix with it!

>*******************************************
>My question is:  What are some other words
>that are self-descriptive like this?  That
>is, the word contains its definition or has
>an implicit concept which is its meaning?
>*******************************************

>The word prefix isn't a very good solution,
>since "pre" is the prefix, not "prefix."

>P.S.  I noticed that my use of the word
>implicit appears to be an oxymoron!  Yet,
>in the context of the question, it is
>not an oxymoron.  Strange.

>Explanation:  implicit is defined as
>"understood from something else though
>unexpressed" but it is expressed
>simply by the presence of the word itself!
>In the context of the question, though, I
>am looking for a concept that is understood
>without the obvious meaning of the word.

>This probably makes no sense, but I understand
>it now.  It makes more sense if you think of
>implicit as being capable of being understood.
>(doesn't help much, does it?)

It seems to me that you're looking for a subset of meta-english words which
describe themselves.  Meta-english words are words describing words.
Perhaps I should call them meta-words?  Normally, words a constructed from
roots with the required meanings to generate the final, complete meaning of
the word.  We've all created our own, perfectly acceptable, but nonexistant
words this way.  When you take one of these words, and apply it to the set
of words, itself, then you get one of these self-identifying words.

The simplest example I can think of is "noun."
Actually, the simplest may actually be "word."

Marc



Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: rjh@allegra.att.com (Robert Holt)
Subject: Re: Another words game
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 00:23:27 GMT

In article <CHALCRAFT.92Sep9094532@laurel.uk.tele.nokia.fi> chalcraft@uk.tele.nokia.fi (Adam Chalcraft) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.203253.8750@vax.oxford.ac.uk> peake@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>
>>   The LastLestListLostLust game, and the idea is to find new names for it.
>
>I have looked for short ones.
>PatPetPitPotPut is the only 3-letter one I know using sensible words.
>--
BagBegBigBogBug
-- 
+-----------------------+
|  Bob Holt             |
|  rjh@allegra.att.com  |
+-----------------------+
From: steppe@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Top Changwatchai)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Logic Problem: Playful kittens
Date: 6 Sep 92 20:03:28 GMT

In article <BtvIE5.B8y@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> bodom@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Brian Odom) writes:
>The following logic is from Penny Press Original Logics #2 October 1992:
>Difficulty rating: easy
>
>Donna's cat, Whiskers, had five kittens a few weeks ago, and all of them look
>...
>Here is a handy chart so that you can record your findings:
>
>               +--------------+--------------+--------------+
>               *characteristic*      toy     * place hidden *
>               +--------------+--------------+--------------+
>               |  |c |  |  |  *  |  |  |  |  *a |  |  |  |  |
>               |  |a |  |  |  *  |  |  |  |  *r |  |  |  |  | 
>               |  |u |c |f |  *  |  |  |  |  *m |c |d |  |  |
>...
>Brian T Odom

Is it just me, or do these charts just not cut it for the more difficult
problems?  I solve logic puzzles using a loose heading format; I write the
different categories as column headings, then translate the clues into this
format.  It's more complicated to explain fully than to execute, but it works;
I haven't come across a logic problem yet that I couldn't solve.

I particularly like "meta-puzzles" (a term possibly coined by Raymond Smullyan)
where you are told some of the clues that someone else is given, and whether
that person was able to solve it, and from that you deduce the solution.  A
trivial example follows:

You're a freshman in college, and one of the tips they give you in the freshman
handbook is that freshmen always tell the truth, while TAs (teaching
assistants) always lie.  Well, you're in class one day when someone leans over
to you and mumbles something.  You can't hear him, though, because some old
guy at the front of the room is talking about homework or something.

You ask him what he said and a second person whispers, "He said he was a TA."
What is he?  The answer of course is that you can't tell, but the second
person is definitely a TA.

Top

PS  Solution to the kitten puzzle follows: (q to skip)


Name        Characteristic      Toy      Hiding place
----        --------------      ---      ------------
Felix       cuddly              ball     drapes
Moppet      cautious            mouse    armchair
Horace      frisky              fish     sofa
Rugs        brave               bunny    closet
Bumbles     shy                 bird     table

-- 
steppe@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
"I'm gonna live forever or die trying."
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Subject: Recursion
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1992 00:25:57 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: A

I'm looking for some pointers to books or super-simple algorithms
involving recursive function calls in computer programs that produce
interesting (curious) behavoir or pretty graphics.  
Thanks, Cliff Pickover cliff@watson.ibm.com
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Subject: Re: 20 question stories
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 08:09:35 GMT

sb102760@ntuvax.ntu.ac.sg writes:

>In article <1992Sep7.053657.24367@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson) writes:
>> 	I'm looking for a collection of logic puzzles.
>> What they are is a story which you can tell people and then they ask
>> you questions about the problem trying to solve the question you 
>> pose them.  Similar to 20 questions but these can last for days ie.
>> 
>> 	' There is a man in a desert he is hung by his neck from a
>> gallows.  His feet are 5 feet off the ground there is no way he could
>> have got to this position by jumping or climbing.  All you notice is
>> that there is a puddle of water at his feet.
>> 	Question : How did he die ??  '

Was he floating in some water that evaporated or something?

keith

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: erick@fraser.sfu.ca (Erick Bryce Wong)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 00:45:12 GMT

williams@ab.wvnet.edu (Tom Williams) writes:
>          Another variant I've seen: "How do you pronounce the word for
>          the white part of an egg -- yoLk or yoke?", to which the
>          answer is, "Albumen".

But of course, the REAL name for the white part of an egg is:

The shell.  :-) :-) :-)
(And even this doesn't apply to a lot of eggs...)

-- 
 -- Erick, the perfect square  :-)
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 16:12:43 -0400 
From: "Jonathan R. Ferro" <jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: 4 color atlas
	<1992Sep9.150220.16711@cs.cornell.edu>

karr@cs.cornell.edu (David Karr) writes:
> What I was doing was trying to imagine what the proof *would* have
> been like if it were presented like a published proof according to the
> standards that existed then.  As you point out, such a requirement is
> indeed silly and inappropriate.

In fact, the proof is like this.  The 1977 volume of the Illinois
Journal of Mathematics is accompanied by 2 microfiche containing over
460 pages of computer-generated results.  Perusal of the fiche by
interested readers over the next year revealed only a dozen typos, which
took only a few minutes each to fix, and one missed case, which took a
solid afternoon's work and one more computer run to cover.

--
Jon Ferro		MIT Transportation Modelling Research Center (TMRC)
jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu	"We can hack it!"
SGNTR VRS VRSN 3.1B: Strppd nd cmprssd fr qckr trnsmssn! nfct yrs tdy!
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: chris@questrel.com (Chris Cole)
Subject: Re: Puzzle 1
Organization: Questrel, Inc.
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 05:24:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.133741.34561@watson.ibm.com> cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff) writes:
>The puzzle I saw there can be stated as follows.  In the 10 boxes below,
>write a 10-digit number.  The digit in the first box indicates the total
>number of zeros in the entire number.  The box marked "1" indicates the
>total number of 1's in the number.  The box marked "2" indicates the
>total number of 2's in the number, and so on.  For example, the "3" in
>the box labeled "0" would indicate that there must be exactly three 0's
>in the 10-digit number.
> 
>-------------------------------
>| 0| 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9|
>| 3|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
>-------------------------------
This puzzle is on the rec.puzzles FAQL (Frequently Asked Questions List).
For an index of the FAQL, send an email letter containing the single line:
send index
to netlib@peregrine.com

The index will be mailed via return email to the address in your
request's "From:" line.  If you are unsure of this address, and cannot
edit this line, then include in your message BEFORE the first "send" line
the line:

return_address <your_return_email_address>

From the FAQL, the answer is:

6210001000

n			sequence
=== 			========
4			1,2,1,0
5			2,1,2,0,0
>= 7			(n-4), 2, 1, 0, 0, ..., 0, 1, 0, 0, 0
				    |            |
				    |            |
				    --------------
					  |
					  |
				    n-7 zeroes here

One way to see this is to count the n members of the sequence in two different 
ways:
  1) Count the number of 0's + number of 1's + ... + number of (n-1)'s to
	get x_0 + x_1 + x_2 + ... + x_(n-1)
  2) Count the number of (numbers of which there are 0) * 0 occurences each + 
	(numbers of which there are 1) * 1 occurrences each +
	(numbers of which there are 2) * 2 occurrences each +
	... +
	(numbers of which there are n-1) * (n-1) occurrences each
     to get
	0 * x_0 + 1 * x_1 + ... + (n-1) * x_(n-1)

By combining these, we get
  x_0 = x_2 + 2 * x_3 + 3 * x_4 + ... + (n-2) * x_(n-1)

A little thought shows that x_0 needs to be larger than 1 or 2, since otherwise
almost all the terms on the RHS are positive, and add up to too much for the
LHS.  But then consider x_(x_0).  This must be exactly 1 or the RHS is too
big.  Then the only possibility to make the equation come out is to let
x_2 be 1 and the rest of the RHS terms 0.  Finally x_1 can only be 2. 

Of course, in all this you have to be careful that n is large enough, etc.
But the essentials of a proof are there.
From: dsbb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D. SPENCER BEECHER)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Virtual reality puzzle
Date: 8 Sep 92 22:58:13 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Sep7.140015.15820@cs.cornell.edu>, karr@cs.cornell.edu (David Ka
rr) writes:

>I prefer the solutions that depend either on the assumption that the
>VR simulator can't keep your body fed without your knowing it, or that
>the VR simulator's own environment (e.g. the electric bills that you
>aren't paying) will catch up with it.
>
>-- David Karr (karr@cs.cornell.edu)
>

Wouldn't a good VR simulator also generate external elements sufficient to
cover unpaid electric bills?
-- 
                   _ _     _ _     _ _
  -Spence         [O.O]   )x.x(   )O.O(
                    O       O      -*-
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: dagjo@ifi.uio.no (Dag Espolin Johnson)
Subject: Re: 20 question stories
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 09:35:27 GMT
Originator: dagjo@baaleyg.ifi.uio.no


>	I'm looking for a collection of logic puzzles.
> What they are is a story which you can tell people and then they ask
> you questions about the problem trying to solve the question you 
> pose them.  Similar to 20 questions but these can last for days ie.

Here is a rather long one, I doesn't think its possible to solve it in 20
questions, but...

One man (called A) walk inside a house, cuts a arm of a body, puts the arm in
some paper and sent it (by mail) to another man (called B).
Mr. B received the arm, looks on it and then posted it to a third man (C).
When C received the arm, he looks on it and then posted it to a fourth man
(D).
When D received the arm, he looks on it, and then he trows it in his
garbage-bin.

(Sorry about the language, but I hope it's possible to understand the story.)


Dag Espolin Johnson  -  dagjo@ifi.uio.no    (University of Oslo, Norway)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: awpaeth@watpix.uwaterloo.ca (Alan Wm Paeth)
Subject: Recursive Situation puzzle
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:18:13 GMT

Q: A man walks into a restaurant, orders albatross soup, tastes it, and
then shoots himself. The cook witnesses this and promptly commits suicide.


A: The cook, an avid reader of rec.puzzles, was out of albatross and just made
   Duck Soup (sans Animal Crackers) instead. When the patron shoots himself the
   cook suddenly realizes that he had had a chance to avert a tragedy but had
   failed to appreciate the puzzling situation presented to him. Next, suicide.
   
Moral: Whenever in this situation, serve mock-pig soup instead. (Converts from
cannibalism reputedly describe human flesh as "pork-like" to missionaries).

Alternate answer: the patron, who is acutely insecure, screws up his face at
the taste of the soup in sight of the Cleese-esque cook who hurls him a 
bloodcurdling expression while brandishing a cleaver. The patron hasn't the
nerve to shoot the cook and kills himself instead. The cook then realizes that
the patron was not the same rude man who complained about the sullied spoon and
in a fit of zealous, raging guilt kills himself.

   /Alan Paeth

No, this is getting too silly.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: liewen@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Liewen Huang)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Intersection of 4 Solid Cylinders = ??? * SPOILER *
Date: 12 Sep 92 16:21:08 GMT
Organization: City College of New York - Science Computing Facility

In article <ABERCROMBIE.92Sep4122036@apphpp10.mdcbbs.com> abercrombie@mdcbbs.com writes:
>
>>>>>> On Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:39:00 GMT, dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE) said:
>
>Dave> Bob_Hearn@qm.claris.com (Bob Hearn) writes...
>>> QUESTION:	How many curved faces does the intersection of 
>>> all 4 cylinders have?
>>
>>8.  It's shaped like an octahedron with curved faces.
>
>Dave> The construction was helpful, but I disagree with the result. I think each
>Dave> face of the octohedron is divided in three faces, by lines connecting the
>Dave> edge centers to the face center. Thus there are 24 faces total, each of
>Dave> which is a bulging quadralateral.
>
>Dave> Dave Ring
>Dave> dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
>
>Dave is right. (Of course). And I don't suppose he even used a solid
>modeller. (I did, to check.)
>
>You may also visualise this rather pretty solid as a cube, each of
>whose faces has been divided into four by a line connecting the edge
>centres to the face centre. The centre of each face is then displaced
>outward, and all the edges are curved nicely so that there is
>discontinuity along corresponding edges only at the original vertices
>of the cube and at the new vertices at the centres of the cube's
>faces.
>
>The volume is approx 0.5684 +- 0.0001 (with unit radius cylinders)
  I think the volume should be bigger than Pi*R*R=.7854, right?


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liewen Huang				|	"Hello."
liewen@sci.ccny.cuny.edu		|	     	-Liewen Huang
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: chalcraft@uk.tele.nokia.fi (Adam Chalcraft)
Subject: Re: Puzzle 1
Organization: cpd
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 07:22:55 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.052438.12478@questrel.com> chris@questrel.com (Chris Cole) writes:

>   From the FAQL, the answer is:
>
>   6210001000
>
>   n			sequence
>   ===			========
>   4			1,2,1,0
>   5			2,1,2,0,0
>   >= 7		(n-4), 2, 1, 0, 0, ..., 0, 1, 0, 0, 0
>				       |            |
>				       |            |
>				       --------------
>					     |
>					     |
>				       n-7 zeroes here

One might add

   n			sequence
   ===			========
   4			2,0,2,0

--
Adam Chalcraft -- Opinions are mine only, and probably wrong anyway.
Email: chalcraft@uk.tele.nokia.fi
       If that confuses your (uk) mailer, try chalcraft@cpdapo.tele.nokia.fi
       If that doesn't work, try ntl02.decnet.nokia.fi (zero-two)
       Alternatively, try dac11@phx.cam.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Subject: Puzzle 2
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:15:51 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: A

Title: Cliff Puzzle 2: Grid of the Gods                                         
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com                                                      
                                                                                
If you respond to this puzzle, if possible please include your name,            
address, affiliation, e-mail address.  If you like, tell me a little bit        
about yourself.  You might also directly mail me a copy of your response        
in addition to any responding you do in the newsgroup.  I will assume it        
is OK to describe your answer in any article or publication I may write         
in the future, with attribution to you, unless you state otherwise.             
Thanks, Cliff Pickover                                                          
                                                                                
* * *                                                                           
                                                                                
Consider a grid of infinitesimal dots spaced 1 inch apart in a cube with        
an edge equal in length to the diameter of the sun (4.5x10**9 feet).            
For conceptual purposes, you can think of the dots as having unit               
spacing, being precisely placed at 1.00000...., 2.00000....,                    
3.00000...., etc. Next choose one of the dots and draw a line through it        
which extends from that dot to the edge of the huge cube in both                
directions.                                                                     
                                                                                
Stop And Think                                                                  
                                                                                
1. What is the probability that your line will intersect another dot            
in the fine grid of dots within the cube the size of the sun?                   
Would your answer be different if the cube were the size of the                 
solar system?                                                                   
                                                                                
2. Could a computer program be written to simulate this process?                
                                                                                
3. Answer the two questions above, but this time assume the line                
to have some finite thickness, T.
From: robertw@informix.com (Robert Weinberg)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: 20 question stories
Date: 11 Sep 92 19:34:00 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <Rev_Bud_Bergen.0332@edtng.uwp.edu> Rev_Bud_Bergen@edtng.uwp.edu (Rev  
Bud Bergen) writes:
> Or, a person goes ten miles south, ten miles east and ten miles north to
> end up where he started.  What color were the bears?
>  

White.

--
+================================+================================+
|         Rob Weinberg           |  Workstation publications tech |
|   Email : robertw@informix.com |        Graphic designer        |
|   Voice : 415-926-6754         |     <imagine your ad here>     |
+================================+================================+
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Intersection of 4 Solid Cylinders = ??? * SPOILER *
From: abercrombie@mdcbbs.com (Phil Abercrombie)
Date: 4 Sep 92 12:13:35 PDT
Reply-To: abercrombie@mdcbbs.com
Organization: M&E (Division of EDS), Cypress CA
In-reply-to: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu's message of Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:39:00 GMT


>>>>> On Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:39:00 GMT, dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE) said:

Dave> Bob_Hearn@qm.claris.com (Bob Hearn) writes...
>> QUESTION:	How many curved faces does the intersection of 
>> all 4 cylinders have?
>
>8.  It's shaped like an octahedron with curved faces.

Dave> The construction was helpful, but I disagree with the result. I think each
Dave> face of the octohedron is divided in three faces, by lines connecting the
Dave> edge centers to the face center. Thus there are 24 faces total, each of
Dave> which is a bulging quadralateral.

Dave> Dave Ring
Dave> dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu

Dave is right. (Of course). And I don't suppose he even used a solid
modeller. (I did, to check.)

You may also visualise this rather pretty solid as a cube, each of
whose faces has been divided into four by a line connecting the edge
centres to the face centre. The centre of each face is then displaced
outward, and all the edges are curved nicely so that there is
discontinuity along corresponding edges only at the original vertices
of the cube and at the new vertices at the centres of the cube's
faces.

The volume is approx 0.5684 +- 0.0001 (with unit radius cylinders)

--
Phil Abercrombie       | Living in another country |    _~o _O   | BIKE TO
abercrombie@mdcbbs.com | Under another name        |   -\<,-\<,  | WORK   
                       |                           | (*)/===/(*) |
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tuesday, 8 Sep 1992 22:32:24 CDT
From: Howard Wachtel <U13054@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: redundancy
Distribution: na

In article <laftbjINNau3@aludra.usc.edu>, rmurphy@usc.edu (Bob Murphy) says:
>
>    ATM machine, HIV virus, PIN number, and LCD display.
>
>These are all redundant. [...]
Can anyone think of other examples of this type of
>redundancy?

   Does "pizza pie" qualify?  I believe that "pizza" is the Italian
word for pie.
________________________________________________________________
Howard K. Wachtel              University of Illinois at Chicago
U13054@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU        Dept. of Redundancy Department
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Subject: Re: Audible Puzzles or Nonsense Questions
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 15:06:05 GMT

Another one which is surprisingly effective:

Which is correct: "Eight and eight IS fifteen" or "Eight and
eight ARE fifteen"?
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Subject: Re: redundancy
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 23:32:34 GMT

epp4010@ultb.isc.rit.edu (E.P. Pylko) writes:

>In article <laftbjINNau3@aludra.usc.edu> rmurphy@usc.edu (Bob Murphy) writes:
>>One can sometimes overhear people use the following phrases:
>>
>>    ATM machine, HIV virus, PIN number, and LCD display.
>>
>>These are all redundant.  For example, ATM stands for Automatic
>>Teller Machine so why say the word "machine" after ATM?  The others
>>are similar.  Can anyone think of other examples of this type of
>>redundancy?
>>

>Well, another one around the country is "TCBY" Yogurt.  For people not
>around here, TCBY stands for "The Country's Best Yogurt".

or the SAT test, or ACT test...

keith

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles