HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: clong@romulus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,rec.org.mensa
Subject: Answers to Hard Analogies
Date: 13 Dec 92 10:13:05 GMT
Followup-To: rec.puzzles
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Questions:

1. Host : Guest :: Cynophobia : ?
2. Mountain : Plain :: Acrocephalic : ?
3. Lover : Believer :: Philofelist : ?
4. 4 : 6 :: Bumblebee : ?
5. 2 : 1 :: Major : ?
6. 1 : 24 :: Group : ?
7. 4 : 64 :: Crotchet : ?
8. Last : First :: Grave : ?
9. 7 : 9 :: Throne : ?
10. Pride : Hatred :: Beelzebub : ?
11. Dollar : Bond :: Grant : ?
12. Ek : Sankh :: 1 : ?

Answers:

1. Lyssophobia

Cynophobia is the fear of dogs; lyssophobia is the fear of rabies.  As
Rodney Adams pointed out, a word meaning the fear of fleas would be
even better, but I've been unable to locate such a word (although
surely one must exists).

2. Homalocephalic

Acrocephalic is having a pointed head; homalocephalic is having a flat
head.  Rodney Adamas suggested "planoccipital", but on checking this
apparently refers to having a flat back of the skull, so he only gets
partial credit.

3. Galeanthropist

A philofelist is a cat-lover (also commonly called an ailurophile);
a galeanthropist is a person who believes they are a cat.

4. Blue Bird

A Camp Fire Girl who is 4 is in the Bumblebee Club; a Campfire Girl
who is 6 in the Blue Bird Club.  I should have had "4 or 5" instead
of "4" to remove ambiguity (e.g. Mark Brader suggested "triplane").

5. Brigadier

A 2-star general in the army is a major general; a 1-star general
in the army is a brigadier general.

6. Field Army

Army groupings; there are 24 "groups" in a "field army".

7. Hemidemisemiquaver

A crotchet is a quarter-note; a hemidemisemiquaver is a sixty-fourth
note.  Rodney Adams and Mark Brader both got this.

8. Prestissimo

In music prestissimo means extremely fast; grave means very slow to
the point of solemnity.  This question was poorly worded (I received
both "womb" and "cradle" as answers).

9. Seraph

In the ninefold hierarchy of angels, a throne ranks 7th and a seraph
9th (9th being most powerful).  Rodney Adams got this one.

10. Sonneillon

In Father Sebastien Machaelis's (one of the more famous exorcists)
hierarchy of devils, Beelzebub is responsible for pride, Sonneillon
for hatred.

11. Roosevelt

Grant is on the $50 bill; Roosevelt on the $50 savings bond.

12. 10^14

Ek is 1 in Hindi; sankh is 10^14 (one hundred quadrillion).
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618

"S.B., with an I.Q. of 161, failed to complete his course of study,
running away instead with his professor's wife."
H. J. Eysenck, _Know Your Own I.Q._
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: Dave Dodson <dodson@convex.COM>
Subject: Integer solutions of 2^m + 3^n = k^2
Originator: dodson@bach.convex.com
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 23:30:55 GMT
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: dodson@convex.COM (Dave Dodson)
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

Find all solutions of the equation 2^m + 3^n = k^2 with m, n,
and k in the integers, and show that you've found them all.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Dodson		                             dodson@convex.COM
Convex Computer Corporation      Richardson, Texas      (214) 497-4234
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: kanad@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Kanad Chakraborty)
Subject: Re: Integer solutions of 2^m + 3^n = k^2
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 01:45:45 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.233055.836@news.eng.convex.com> dodson@convex.COM (Dave Dodson) writes:
>Find all solutions of the equation 2^m + 3^n = k^2 with m, n,
>and k in the integers, and show that you've found them all.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Dave Dodson		                             dodson@convex.COM
>Convex Computer Corporation      Richardson, Texas      (214) 497-4234

Case 1 :  m > 0.
==================
(1) 1st observation : k must be odd.  (Easy!)
(2) 2nd observation :  n must be even.  (Express 3 as 1+2, perform
the binomial expansion and cancel out terms on both sides.)
(3) Then 2^m = (k + 3^(n/2))(k - 3^(n/2))
(4) From (3) it follows quite easily that
p and q are the largest positive integers such that :

k mod (2^p) = 1     ... (i)  
k mod (3^q) = 2     ... (ii)

This is seen as : k = 3^(n/2) + 2;  i.e. q = n/2  and  k = 2^(m-2) + 1; hence, 
p = (m-2). As an aside, this proves that m >= 2.

Based on the above observations, we notice that the problem boils down
to finding a power of 2 which is exactly 1 greater than
a power of 3.

Obviously,  p=q=1 does the job; hence set k to 3, which produces
m = 3 and n = 0.

Likewise, any (and only) pairs of positive integers that differ by 1
and happen to be of the form (power of 2, power of 3) produce a valid
m,n,k tuple.

Kanad
From: irw@bharh58.bnr.co.uk (Ian Woollard)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: The Worm and the Blanket Problem: minimum = 0.217 = poss max too
Date: 16 Dec 1992 22:05:23 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe Ltd, London Road, Harlow, England.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.131.128.36

In article <ByyD2u.5CM@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> ags@seaman.cc.purdue.edu (Dave Seaman) writes:
>In article <11370@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> warwick@cs.uq.oz.au (Warwick  
>Allison) writes:
>>     \_______________________________
>>                     C              B
>> 
>> It is easy to see that such a worm can be covered by a diameter 1  
>semicircle.
>> Please, show me a worm that wont fit in it.
>
>Ok, how about:
>
>      \_______________________________
>                                      \
>
>--
>Dave Seaman
>ags@seaman.cc.purdue.edu

This in fact fits in a half circle, if you place the right hand point
in the right hand corner of the half circle, the left hand corner on
the base of the half circle. It is easy to see that the left hand end
cannot touch the circle.

In fact I cannot find a shape that will not fit in the right angle
triangle with sides 1, 1/2 and ~0.866, at present. I've just finished
considering a slightly kinked line lying along the side of length 1,
but I *think* it *does* fit, very surprisingly. I think this is the
upper limit... but proving it is a real b*tch.

Anything smaller than this definitely doesn't work, as you need one
edge of length 0.5 and another of length 1, plus a right angle in
order to fit in worms with just one kink or none.

Counter-examples anyone?

-Ian.

n.b. not that I have anything against female dogs, but I'm beginning
to have something against infinitely thin worms of length 1
From: ksampath@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Krishna S Sampath)
Subject: help needed with crossword.sty
Summary: cannot latex the test programs
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 02:58:41 GMT

can anyone help?

i have all the files from that come with crossword.sty. i am having
trouble latexing crossword_0.tex as well as crossword_1.tex. i have
read the crosswords.readme, but it did not help.

thanks
krishna
-- 
krishna s. sampath....graduate research assoc.....kss@ampere.eng.ohio-state.edu
ohio state u, electroscience lab......(614) 292-7981 (w)....(614) 292-7297  (f)
1320 kinnear rd, columbus, oh 43212...(614) 293-0913 (h)...011-91-4542-4127 (H)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: clong@romulus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Re: COMPUTER JOURNAL articles
Date: 20 Dec 92 17:05:35 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <1992Dec15.205544.27230@ulysses.att.com>, Guy Jacobson writes:
 
> @phdthesis	(mazlack72,
> author	=	"L.~J. Mazlack",
> title	=	"An Investigation of Computer Generated Crossword Puzzles",
> school  =       "Washington University",
> address	=	"{St. Louis, MO}",
> year	=	1972)

Someone actually did on doctoral thesis on computer crossword construction?
Can I get me one of those? :) While on this subject, I just finished a
short article on the mathematics of word squares.  It's all quite ele-
mentary (as it must be for _Word Ways_), but it is somewhat related to
fast probabilistic generation of crosswords (which is what I used to
find all-Webster double-7 squares), but that's for another article.
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618

"S.B., with an I.Q. of 161, failed to complete his course of study,
running away instead with his professor's wife."
H. J. Eysenck, _Know Your Own I.Q._
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: clong@romulus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Computer Crosswords (was Re: COMPUTER JOURNAL ...)
Date: 21 Dec 92 04:15:48 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <BzKsIK.ELq@demon.co.uk>, Graham Toal writes:

> Is this entirely a mathematical analysis or do you have any useful
> code to put up?

I have all kinds of useful code (IMHO), but you're going to have
to wait for a few years before I consider it good enough to release.
Most people consider this to be a difficult thing to write, but it's
actually very easy (small child could do it, etc.).  The hard part
isn't generating crosswords, it's generating *good* crosswords.

The winning approach appears to be to tag each word with a number
(it's "value"), and then trying to find the maximum value over all
possible fills.  This isn't as hard as it sounds if you have a fixed
grid pattern, since most of the time you'll have quite a few fixed
theme words, and you don't really need the global maximum, just a
fill with a decent score.  So, just use a greedy algorithm with some
obvious pruning, and you'll be able to generate decent fills almost
instantly.  The order in which to put words are put in appears
to be best automated by using a probabilistic approach (which is
what I'm working on).

This is the easy part; the hard part is tagging all of the (thousands)
of words, which must be done by hand.  However, it's possible to
speed this process up if you can obtain enough word lists.  Write
a program which looks to see in what lists does a given word appear,
and then use this information in conjunction with information about
the word itself ("z" and "q" are good, doubled letters are good, etc.)
to derive a score.  For example, if a word appears in only the NI2
list, it gets a low score because it's probably obscure.  But
assuming "fuzz" is in all the lists, it gets a great score between
that and having the doubled "z".

Finally, the hardest part doing the clues!  Anyone know how to
automate these?  :)
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618

"S.B., with an I.Q. of 161, failed to complete his course of study,
running away instead with his professor's wife."
H. J. Eysenck, _Know Your Own I.Q._
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Re: COMPUTER JOURNAL articles
Date: 20 Dec 92 20:49:31 GMT
Organization: Cuddlehogs Anonymous

In article <Dec.20.12.05.35.1992.16344@romulus.rutgers.edu> clong@romulus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long) writes:
:Someone actually did on doctoral thesis on computer crossword construction?
:Can I get me one of those? :)

Course you can - don't they sell Corn Flakes in your country? :-)

:While on this subject, I just finished a
:short article on the mathematics of word squares.  It's all quite ele-
:mentary (as it must be for _Word Ways_), but it is somewhat related to
:fast probabilistic generation of crosswords (which is what I used to
:find all-Webster double-7 squares), but that's for another article.

Is this entirely a mathematical analysis or do you have any useful
code to put up?

G
From: elkies@ramanujan.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: How to construct an acrostic? [Re: Crypticrostic]
Keywords: acrostics, anagrams
Date: 11 Dec 92 23:21:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Dec11.182103.18415
Distribution: na
Organization: Harvard Math Department

In article <101501@netnews.upenn.edu> jimmosk@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
(Jim J Moskowitz) writes:
>
>         [...] did you write a program to [PostScript the cryptic acrostic]?

More interesting is the question of how, beginning with a suitable quote,
do constructors of acrostic puzzles, whether cryptic or not, go about
splitting its letter among a number of acrostic entries satisfying all
the boundary conditions (initial letters spell out author/title, no
acrostic entry has more than one letter in each word of the acrostic quote,
reasonably clue-able entries, anything else I don't know about)?  It seems
clear that given a quote there should be scads of solutions to this
combinatorial problem, but there would appear to be even more ways to
paint oneself into a corner.  Does anybody have a computer program that
will solve this problem?

--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
From: hamel@uakari.primate.wisc.edu (Ray Hamel)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: COMPUTER JOURNAL articles
Date: 14 Dec 1992 08:05:11 -0600
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
NNTP-Posting-Host: uakari.primate.wisc.edu


> From: jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com (James A. Lundon)
> Subject: LaTeX to PS conversion please and paper appeal
> Message-ID: <1992Dec14.090931.16767@rdg.dec.com>
> 
> For anyone interested, I got access to some of the articles mentioned in a
> bibliography a few months ago. It seems that the Computer Journal has published
> at least 7 articles on or about crosswords. Some are quite interesting if you
> want to know anything about the computerised effort to create or solve crossword
> puzzles.
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  James A. Lundon,|    jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com      "What we obtain too 
>  Digital,        |                                      cheaply, we esteem too
>  Ballybrit,      |       Phone  353 + 91  54715         lightly; it is dearness
>  Galway,         |       FAX    353 + 91  54899         only that gives
>  Ireland.        |                                      everything its value"
>                  |    All opinions are my own. OK!            Anon.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

How about posting those COMPUTER JOURNAL citations to the net?  I would
be interesting in reading them.

Ray Hamel
University of Wisconsin
From: ross@bryson.demon.co.uk (Ross Beresford)
Subject: Re: COMPUTER JOURNAL articles
Organization: Bryson Limited, Reading, UK
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 19:05:14 GMT

Guy Jacobson (guy@ulysses.att.com) wrote:
: Here's a bibliography of computer construction and solution of
: crossword puzzles.

Has any of this work resulted in publicly available pieces of
software, either commercial or non-commercial?

-- 
Ross Beresford
Email: ross@bryson.demon.co.uk           Voice: +44 734 344153
Bryson Limited, 10 Wagtail Close, Twyford, Reading, RG10 9ED, UK
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com (James A. Lundon)
Subject: Re:: COMPUTER JOURNAL articles
Reply-To: jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com (James A. Lundon)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 08:50:46 GMT


I don't think there are any commercially available software to help in the
automation of crossword setting. Although going by the articles from the
COMPUTER Journal I have there must be at least a few systems floating around in
someones directories or disks?

                           James. 

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 James A. Lundon,|    jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com      "What we obtain too 
 Digital,        |                                      cheaply, we esteem too
 Ballybrit,      |       Phone  353 + 91  54715         lightly; it is dearness
 Galway,         |       FAX    353 + 91  54899         only that gives
 Ireland.        |                                      everything its value"
                 |    All opinions are my own. OK!            Anon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com (James A. Lundon)
Subject: LaTeX to PS conversion please and paper appeal
Reply-To: jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com (James A. Lundon)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 09:09:31 GMT


Many people in USENETland don't have access to a LaTeX to postscript converter 
so could I ask anyone posting in LaTeX to also convert to postscript. It would
certainly make it easier on me to print out :-).

It's a great idea to test out your crossword setting ability by posting to the
network! When I get around to setting mine I will also put it on the network.

For anyone interested, I got access to some of the articles mentioned in a
bibliography a few months ago. It seems that the Computer Journal has published
at least 7 articles on or about crosswords. Some are quite interesting if you
want to know anything about the computerised effort to create or solve crossword
puzzles. However, I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of the article from the 

SIAM J. Computing March 1976 5/1 pp 51-76
Machine Selection of Elements in Crossword Puzzles
Lawrence Mazleck.

Anyone help?

Also, Anyone have "Ximenes on the art of the crossword" to sell?

                         James.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 James A. Lundon,|    jlundon@xstacy.enet.dec.com      "What we obtain too 
 Digital,        |                                      cheaply, we esteem too
 Ballybrit,      |       Phone  353 + 91  54715         lightly; it is dearness
 Galway,         |       FAX    353 + 91  54899         only that gives
 Ireland.        |                                      everything its value"
                 |    All opinions are my own. OK!            Anon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: tomd@bali.amd.com (Tom Deneau)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: ACC 16 Announcement
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:19:32 GMT
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Austin TX

I think this article didn't make it out on the first 
attempt so let's try it again.  The deadline has also
been changed.

	Araucaria Clueing Competition Number 16
	---------------------------------------

Welcome to ACC 16.  To enter, E-mail a cryptic clue to me for
the word given below (only one clue per person, please).  I'll
post my choice of winning clue soon after the deadline, and
a list of all clues I receive.  The winner will be invited to
judge the next ACC, so please indicate in your mail whether or
not you are available to moderate the next contest.


The word to clue (cleverly disguised in rot13 mode) is:

        SBERCYNL

The deadline for receipt of clues is:

        Thursday 24 December 1992  23:59 CST

E-mail address:
	tom.deneau@amd.com

Happy Clueing!
















-----------------------------------------------------------------
 Tom Deneau                    {uunet, cs.utexas.edu!ames}!amdcad!cayman!tomd
 Advanced Micro Devices, Austin TX     +1 512 462 4952     tom.deneau@AMD.COM
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: kennedy@asuvax.eas.asu.edu (Ralph Kennedy)
Subject: ACC15 Winner
Organization: crosswords
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 01:11:56 GMT


The winning clue for Araucaria Clueing Competition #15 is:


        Immature bird is said to be reared nicely (11)


by Guy Jacobson (guy@ulysses.att.com).

Since Guy declines, I invite second-place finisher
Tom Deneau (tomd@cayman.amd.com) to moderate ACC16.

--Ralph Kennedy      {ames,gatech,husc6,rutgers}!ncar!noao!asuvax!kennedy
                        {allegra,decvax,ihnp4,oddjob}--^
                                          ^---------------The Wrong Choice
                             internet: kennedy@asuvax.asu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov (John Hutchinson)
Subject: Re: COMPUTER JOURNAL articles
Reply-To: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:45:30 GMT

In article 535@bryson.demon.co.uk, ross@bryson.demon.co.uk (Ross Beresford) writes:
>Guy Jacobson (guy@ulysses.att.com) wrote:
>: Here's a bibliography of computer construction and solution of
>: crossword puzzles.
>
>Has any of this work resulted in publicly available pieces of
>software, either commercial or non-commercial?


Not that I know of (maybe Guy or James know of something)... but stay tuned. :)
---

___________________________ John "HUTCH" Hutchinson _________________________
_________________ Fair Dinkum Technologies     Member - IAAD  _______________
________________ "No worries, mate... it's from Fair Dinkum!" _______________
____________ email: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov   GEnie: FAIR-DINKUM _____________
From: sbardhan@uncc.edu (Soumendu Bardhan)
Subject: Re: 8-queen problems (revisited?)
Reply-To: sbardhan@uncc.edu
Organization: University of NC at Charlotte
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 08:01:30 GMT

The eight Queen Problem:

Arrange eight queens in a chess board such that no queen attacks another queen (following the 
chess playing rule : A queen can attack sideways , up-down and diagonally)

It is a still a unsolved problem . Famous Mathematician Hoare dealt with this problem
unsuccessfully in 1846. 

Talking about the algorithm ---- all the algorithms known so far are based on searching
the entire search space ( using heuristics) and backtracking . This is in a way telling 
the computer to try all possible positions and check . Any computer book on "data structure"
will give you the algorithm.

I, for  sometime  tried to do some research on this subject.
The total number of possible positions is 92.
An interesting thing to note is that if you find one solution you have already found 8 solutions---- by seeing the chess board from 4 sides and also from the mirror image.
But the question is then, the total number of solutions should be a multiple of 8.
Actually 4 mirror images coincides.
More on this later
From: clong@romulus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: We Have a New Leader! (was Re: Cute ...)
Date: 15 Dec 92 10:26:20 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <1ghg9cINNp6k@aludra.usc.edu>, Bob Murphy writes:

> QUESTION:  For which bases is 101 prime?  This can be rephrased
>            as: For which values of b is b^2 + 1 a prime?

> I don't know the answer to this and I believe that it
> may be a difficult problem.

At the last possible minute and out of nowhere, Bob Murphy pulls into
the lead for the annual rec.puzzles understatement-of-the-year award.
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618

"S.B., with an I.Q. of 161, failed to complete his course of study,
running away instead with his professor's wife."
H. J. Eysenck, _Know Your Own I.Q._