HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: markc@eomer.hw.stratus.com (Mark Christensen)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: 3 puzzles
Date: 23 Jul 92 13:30:42 GMT
Reply-To: markc@eomer.sw.stratus.com (Mark Christensen)
Distribution: rec.puzzles
Organization: Stratus Computer, Hardware Engineering

Here are three puzzles:

[1]
	What is the first number, when spelled out (e.g. O-N-E) is
in alphabetical order?

[2]
	A man walks into a hardware store and goes to the clerk
and says he wants an item.  "I'll take one", he says. The clerk
says that that will be $1.  "How much for 12", the man asks?
That will be $2 the clerk respond.  "OK, I'll take 125", the
man says, to which the clerk responds, "That will be $3 please".
What is the item that the man is buying.

[3]
  A king decided to have some fun one night and summoned three
prisoners to be brought up from the dungeon.  They were brought
before him and the king made an offer:

"I have a box with five hats in it", he started.  "There are
three red hats and two white hats. You will be blindfolded
and asked to take one hat from the box.  At that time, each
one of you will be unblindfolded and shown the hats of the other
two prisoners (but not your own).  Then you will be asked to
identify the color of your hat.  If you are wrong, your head
will get chopped off.  If you don't know, back to the
dungeons with you.  If you guess correctly, I will set you free."

(Assume these prisoners are somewhat intelligent and give
correct answers.)

The first prisoner took his blindfold off, looked at the other
two prisoner's hats and said, "I can't tell what color my hat is".

The second prisoner also responded as the first prisoner.

The third prisoner, who was blind, said, "I know exactly
what color my hat is".

What color is the third prisoner's hat and why can't it be the
opposite color?
From: jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Ten equals 9.9999....
Summary: It doesn't.
Keywords: nine ten repeating digits
Date: 28 Jul 92 05:17:45 GMT
Reply-To: Joe Keane <jgk@osc.com>
Organization: Versant Object Technology, Menlo Park, CA
Weather: sunny, high 79, low 55
Moon-Phase: waning crescent (4% of full)

In article <1992Jul24.102553.17411@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
tjoa@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Richard Tjoa) writes:
>              _
>            9.9  =  x  (yes, I mean "repeating" with the bar over it.)
>              _
>           99.9  =  10x  (multiply by 10)
>              _
>         -  9.9  = -  x  (subtract that first thing)
>          --------------
>           90    =   9x  (oooh, no more decimal)

I'm afraid you made a mistake in your subtraction.  The problem is that
99.999... minus 9.9999... is 89.999..., not 90 like you have.

>           10    =    x  (divide by 9)
>              _
>            9.9  =   10  (voila!  [QED])

And then when you divide by 9, you get x = 9.9999... back, so you've only
proven that 9.9999... is equal to itself.

:-)

--
Joe Keane, amateur mathematician
jgk@osc.com (uunet!amdcad!osc!jgk)
From: asente@adobe.com (A Usenet Pal)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Re: Missing information
Date: 21 Jul 92 22:12:17 GMT
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated

In article <9635@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> rt@ukc.ac.uk (R.W.Thearle) writes:
>			Missing Information
>
>	In the following U.S. style crossword, all the clue numbers are
>	missing from both the diagram and the clues. Most of the clues
>	are simple definitions.

Very cute, very nice puzzle.  How about the answer now?  There were a few
letters I'm not sure of.

__   -paul asente
\/     asente@adobe.com   ...decwrl!adobe!asente   moo-bear@cs.stanford.edu

If you want EOF indicated by having the user spin around three times, bang a
coffee cup on the table, and shout "Vive Quebec", you are free to do so if
you can figure out how to detect it. As long as you do the right thing when
it happens, you are still speaking PostScript.	- Elizabeth Zwicky
From: guy@ulysses.att.com (Guy Jacobson)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: ACC #6 announcement
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:40:32 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

Entries are due 11:59 EDT August 15. Only one per person, please.
I'll post my favorite as the winner as soon as I can after that,
along with a list of all the clues recieved.  The winner will be
invited to judge the next ACC.


Here's the word for ACC # 6 rot 13ed after a bunch o' newlines:















































	NPR


_________________________________________________________________
Guy Jacobson   (908) 582-6558              AT&T Bell Laboratories
        uucp:  {att,ucbvax}!ulysses!guy	   600 Mountain Avenue
    internet:  guy@ulysses.att.com         Murray Hill NJ, 07974
From: haack@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: Re: words ending in 'gry'
Date: 22 Jul 92 14:32:37 GMT
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

A brief search through _Chambers Back-Words for Crosswords_ uncovered the
following words ending in -GRY.  I did not check definitions on any of them.

AGGRY
ANGRY
HUNGRY
AHUNGRY
HIGRY-PIGRY
EARD-HUNGRY
YERD-HUNGRY
YIRD-HUNGRY
YEARD-HUNGRY
From: martin@lyra.cis.umassd.edu (Gary Martin)
Subject: Re: words ending in 'gry'
Organization: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 03:18:58 GMT

In article <jcn.711689077@keckiris> jcn@rice.edu (Jeff C. Nichols) writes:

   I was wondering if anyone knows of a word other than 

	   angry
   or
	   hungry

   in the English language that ends in "gry".

   This may be one of those urban myth things, but who knows ;-)

   I would appreciate responses via e-mail as I don't read this group 
   very often.

Oops! Noticed the e-mail request a bit late.  Anyhow, I was hung up on
this one a year or so ago and decided that there is no third one in
common current use.  But I did find that mawgry is an alternate spelling
of the obsolete word maugre, which means ill-will, displeasure, or 
spite borne by one person towards another (OED).  This discovery was
quite fortuitous, as I was skimming the OED for ...gry words at the time :)

--
Gary A. Martin, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, UMass Dartmouth
Martin@cis.umassd.edu
Organization: Arizona State University
Date: Friday, 24 Jul 1992 19:46:38 MST
From: Clark C. Presson <ATCCP@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject:    CWC11

Tom Deneau has displayed the  good taste (or poor judgment) :-)
to declare my clues as the winners for CWC10.

Thus, I continue in the esteemed tradition of Ian Gent et al. and will
moderate the next round.


     CLUE WRITING COMPETITION NUMBER 11

Welcome to Clue Writing Competition No. 11 (devised by Ian Gent).  The
rules, and this article, are much the same as used in earlier editions.

The dates for CWC11 are:

    Thursday 30 July 23:59 EST: Deadline for CWC11 entries
    Friday   31 July            I'll post the CWC11 winners
    Friday   31 July            I'll post an annotated list of entries.

The rules:

Later on in this posting you'll find two words.  The first word is
chosen to be fairly easy to write a clue for; the second is intended to
be more awkward.

You may submit clues for either or both words.  I will accept only one
clue per person for each word; If you send more than one for a word, I
will accept the first one I receive.  E-mail the clues, along with your
name and e-mail address, explanations of how your clues work, and
whether or not you could run the next contest, to me at the following
address:

        atccp @ asuvm.inre.asu.edu
     or  atccp  @ asuacad.bitnet

After the deadline, I'll pick my favorite clue for each word.  Thus
there will be two winning clues.  I'll pick my favorite of these two
as the overall winner, inviting its writer to set the next round of
this competition.  I'll post separately a list of all the remaining
clues, with as much commentary as I see fit.

IMPORTANT: Please DO NOT post your own clues, or anything else that
might give away the answer words!  Some readers of this group want to
try solving the winning clues; please don't spoil it for them.

The words for CWC11 follow, "rot13" encoded for extra security,
after 35 blank lines




































RYNOBENGR

WHKGNCBFR


As for what kind of clues I like:  I like tight clues that read well.
(who doesn't?) I enjoy a variety of word fun so I am somewhat eclectic
in my tastes.
I look forward to seeing your clues.


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Clark C. Presson                E-Mail: atccp @ asuvm.inre.asu.edu
Psychology Department                   atccp @ asuacad.bitnet
Arizona State University
Tempe AZ 85287-1104

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: tridge@nimbus.anu.edu.au (Andrew Tridgell)
Subject: anyone interested in a cross word builder?
Keywords: automatic
Organization: Comp. Sci. Lab., Australian National Uni.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 04:13:33 GMT

My wife needed to build a crossword on a particular topic for a course she was giving (just to liven up the course). She chose a list of words and I wrote a program to build a crossword using those words. Since then several other people have asked me for the program.

My question is whether anyone else is interested in this program. Do such things alraedy exist? Have I wasted my time reproducing a program which every crossworder worth his salt has already got?

I better explain exactly what it does I suppose. You give it a list of words (can be as many as you want - I tried feeding it a dictionary with interesting results) and the width and height of the crossword. It then churns out numerous crosswords with as many of the words as possible, following all the normal cross word rules. It saves the crosswords both as text and in the .pzl format used by xword (the shareware windows program).

The program is called angry (for obvious reasons) and runs happily on PC's or Unix boxes - but should also compile and run with any halfway decent C compiler.

Please excuse this post if this has been done before - I am a novice to crosswords.

If lots of people do want the program then I'll post the source and binary for a PC version here or on some ftp site.

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Andrew Tridgell                 CSLab, Research School of Physical Sciences
Andrew.Tridgell@anu.edu.au      Australian National University (x3064)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: tomd@bali.amd.com (Tom Deneau)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
Subject: CWC10 Winners
Date: 24 Jul 92 16:08:12 GMT
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Austin TX


Here are the winning clues I chose for the CWC10 contest:

The winning clue for the first word is

    Is it significant silence, or bad disposition? (12)


The winning clue for the second word is

    With luck, knee won't end up as arthritic joint! (7)


I picked the first clue as the overall winner.  After I had
picked the two winning clues (from a list with names removed),
I discovered they were both sent in by Clark C. Presson
(ATCCP@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU).  Luckily, he indicates he is
willing to judge the next contest.  Congratulations, Clark.
(although you'll quickly discover this judging thing can be
quite difficult).

Later today I will post an annotated list of all the CWC10 clues submitted.
These messages will be clearly labelled as SPOILERS so if you want to
try and solve these clues, don't read those messages.

 Tom Deneau                    {uunet, cs.utexas.edu!ames}!amdcad!cayman!tomd
 Advanced Micro Devices, Austin TX     +1 512 462 4952           tomd@AMD.COM
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: sjm@bcrki65.bnr.ca (Stuart MacMartin)
Subject: Re: words ending in 'gry'
Reply-To: sjm@bcrki65.bnr.ca (Stuart MacMartin)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 14:41:08 GMT

In article <jcn.711689077@keckiris>, jcn@rice.edu (Jeff C. Nichols) writes:
 
> I was wondering if anyone knows of a word other than 
> 
> 	angry
> or
> 	hungry
> 
> in the English language that ends in "gry"

uh... you could be creative.  How about "peddigry" or "filigry"?
Ok, I agry, that's taking it a degry too far. :-)

: Stuart MacMartin                                    email: sjm@bnr.ca      :
: Bell-Northern Research                              phone: (613) 763-5625  :
: PO Box 3511, Stn C, Ottawa, K1Y-4H7, CANADA    Standard disclaimers apply. :
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: aardvark@locus.com (Warren Usui)
Subject: ACC 5 contest winner
Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Los Angeles, California
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 21:18:09 GMT

The winner of the ACC 5 contest is:

Bum rap: U. S. Mail pouches are found in this strange order (9)

Submitted by Guy Jacobson (guy@ulysses.att.com).  Congratulations, Guy.

In the grand tradition of the ACC contest, Guy will be in charge of
ACC 6.

I will post an answer and the clues everyone else sent in tomorrow.

Thanks to all who participated.

-- 
Warren Usui
aardvark@locus.com
uunet!lcc!aardvark

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles.crosswords
From: matthew@ntl02.decnet.nokia.fi (Matthew Faupel)
Subject: Re: Cooperative Solving of Cryptics (& other strangeness)
Organization: Nokia Telecommunications, Cambridge, UK
Distribution: rec
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 16:40:00 GMT

DAA: Daniel A. Asimov in article <1992Jul21.014206.12579@nas.nasa.gov>

DAA: I'm not sure how others out there like to solve their cryptics.
DAA: For years I almost always worked on them solo.  This was above
DAA: all because I didn't know anyone else who liked this strange hobby.
DAA: But also becuse there is a special joy of accomplishment to solve
DAA: the whole puzzle all by oneself.

DAA: However, one great source of pleasure I have experienced over the
DAA: last 8 years or so is solving cryptics cooperatively with a group
DAA: of like-minded people.

DAA: I'm curious: are there any other similar groups out there?  (I use
DAA: the word "group" loosely, since the solvers at breakfast usually
DAA: varied from week to week.)

A group of about 3 to 5 of us do The Telegraph crossword most lunchtimes
(accompanied by complaints about how awful the clues are :-)  The Telegraph
also provides a quick crossword (with straight rather than cryptic clues)
which doesn't take much more than 5 minutes to solve normally.  However,
just recently we've spiced it up a bit by only filling in the lights where
the words cross, and then once the crossword is complete we try and find
alternatives for every single word (preferably with each unfilled in letter
being different to the original).

Just in case this doesn't make any sense at all, here's an excerpt from
today's puzzle with the common letters in capitals:

   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
   |1  |###|2  |###|3  |###|###|###|4  |###|5  |###|6  |
   |   |###|   |###|   |###|###|###|   |###|   |###|   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
   |7  |   |   |   |   |   |###|8  |   |   |   |   |   |
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |###|   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

Across

7. Series of lectures (6)    Real answer CoUrSe, replacement ClUmSy
8. Disposition (6)            "     "    nAtUrE,   "     "   cAnUtE

Down

2. Breastplate (7)            "     "    cUiRaSs,  "     "   bUlRuSh
4. Bullfighter (7)            "     "    mAtAdOr,  "     "   pArAgOn

etc.

We haven't yet managed to create a completely alternative crossword (today's
problem was trying to find an alternative for T_U_I_T where the original
word was Tourist), but it's fun trying!



Matthew
--
---* Amnesiac the Wizard *------------------* matthew@uk.tele.nokia.fi *---
 Opinions expressed here are not those of my company.    | NB. ntl02 is EN
 They're not even my own; I plagiarised the lot of them! | TEE EL ZERO TWO
---* matthew@ntl02.decnet.nokia.fi *------------------* Matthew Faupel *---
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: permutations
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 23:52:13 GMT

In article <12476@inews.intel.com> 
  dmccart@gomez.intel.com (D. J. McCarthy ~) writes:
>cdl0915@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Christian Dylan Losinger) writes:
>> 
>> 	I need a good algortithm for producing all permutations of a sequence
>> of items .
>
>	There's a good (albeit recursive) one in one of Martin
>Gardner's collections of Scientific Americans... if I remember
>I'll find it over the weekend and post it Monday.

If all the items are unique, this should work.  To get all the permutations
of n elements, take each element in the sequence and put it at the beginning
of all permutations of the remaining n-1 elements.

C Frog
From: rcutler@banach.WPI.EDU (Robert Cutler)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Ten equals 9.9999....
Keywords: nine ten numbers repeating digits sex
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:28:11 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Originator: rcutler@banach.WPI.EDU


In article <24JUL199210020296@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov>, smneyln@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov (Michael Neylon) writes:
|> In article <1992Jul24.102553.17411@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, tjoa@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Richard Tjoa) writes...
|> >Ok, here's something interesting...
|> >9.9999...  (nine point nine repeating)  =   10  (ten)
|> >              _
|> >            9.9  =  x  (yes, I mean "repeating" with the bar over it.)
|> >              _
|> >           99.9  =  10x  (multiply by 10)
|> >              _
|> >         -  9.9  = -  x  (subtract that first thing)
|> >          --------------
|> >           90    =   9x  (oooh, no more decimal)
|> >           10    =    x  (divide by 9)
|> >              _
|> >            9.9  =   10  (voila!  [QED])
|> > 
|> > 
|> 
|> If I remember correctly, there was a discussion last year that
|> 9999999999(repeating) === 1 
|> 
|> so this is no fallacy (9.99999... = 9 + .999999... = 9 + 1 = 10)
|> 
|> Mike Neylon          aka Masem the Great and Almighty Thermo GOD
|>   // Only the | Univ. of Toledo - Chemical Engineering - Senior
|> \X/   AMIGA!  |   NASA Lewis Research Center - Summer Intern
|> \_____________|_____smneyln@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov________________/
|>        -+ How do YOU spell 'potato'?  How about 'lousy'? +- 
|>       "Me and Spike are big Malcolm 10 supporters."-J.S.,PLCL


	Actually  (repeating)9999999999 === -1



It follows from the fact that .999999999 === 1

9999999999.999999999999  = x
9999999999.999999999999  = 10 x

multiply by ten and they are still equal.  hence x = 0 and since .99999 = 1
(repeating)999999999.  must equal -1 to add up to zero.


	If you'll accept that I have a really neat trick with infinity
mod and infinitely large prime number.  (Pascals Triangle)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (David G Radcliffe)
Subject: Cryptarithm
Organization: UW-Milwaukee Math Department
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 17:03:19 GMT

Can you replace each letter in 
  
   RATE * TIME = DISTANCE

by a different decimal digit so that the above is a true statement?

(for example, if you replace E by 6, then every E must be replaced by
6, and no other letter can be 6.)

I don't know whether there are any solutions or not.  It may be too
hard to work this out by hand; computer solutions are welcome.

--
David Radcliffe                                
radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu            
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Subject: Re: Cubes
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 22:25:00 GMT

s290@brems.ii.uib.no ( Per Ivar Roervik) writes...
>  In a nxnxn cube of cubes tightly packed, what is the max number
>  of cubes a straight line can pierce?

3n-2?

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: Ten equals 9.9999....
Keywords: nine ten repeating digits
Organization: my opinions only
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 23:12:30 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.232532.3577@hellgate.utah.edu>
tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
>>If two numbers are different, then there's another number between
>>them.  (Actually, a lot of such numbers.)
>
>>If you can't give an example of a number between 9.99999... and 10,
>>please don't post anymore to this thread.


>SAY WHAT?  This is the silliest bit of nonsense ever.

You must not have been on the net for very long.

>  "If two numbers are
>different, then there's another number between them".  Let's consider the
>integers, and I will give you 2 and 3.  Now, if they are different, there
>must be an integer between them.  Well, what is it?

2.3.  I was referring to real numbers; I should have been more specific.

>Now, if you assert that the above is true for REAL's then you better have
>some reason, for I can just as easily assert the opposite.  As a matter of
>fact, I can show you two numbers which are different, which do not have any
>number between them...
>  41.999999.... and 42

Well, the real numbers are dense and well-ordered.  Since you say
those two numbers are different, what is (41.99999... + 42)/2?

Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com
From: filfeit@rael.Tymnet.COM (Fil Feit)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: preposition proposition
Date: 23 Jul 92 12:24:30 GMT
Reply-To: filfeit@rael.Tymnet.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems

Everybody knows that a preposition is a word you should not
end a sentence with B-).

Can someone post a sentence that ends with FIVE prepostions?

--f2

----------------------------
  Time flies like an arrow.
  Fruit flies like a banana.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: cab@col.hp.com (Chris Best)
Subject: Re: preposition proposition
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:07:50 GMT
Organization: your service

> Can someone post a sentence that ends with FIVE prepostions?

>   Time flies like an arrow.

----------

Has it been two weeks already?  Time flies, allright.

Five is no problem.  Last posting here had seven or eight - 
concerning a book about Australia.
From: grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: How Many Composites?
Date: 29 Jul 92 17:51:35 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.


Consider a prime number - p

How many composite numbers with p as a factor that are:

less than p^2

less than p!




-- 
i.sinature
From: filfeit@rael.Tymnet.COM (Fil Feit)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: HAD x 11 (spoiler?)
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:33:44 GMT
Reply-To: filfeit@rael.Tymnet.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems

In article 12611@informix.com, robertw@informix.com (Robert Weinberg) writes:
>How many people out there have heard a grammatical, and not all that improbable  
>(:>), sentence that uses the word "had" 11 times in a row with only punctuation  
>or spaces separating instances of the word?
>
>(I know, someone is going to answer "Eight people." :>)
>
>--

9 people.  :-)

Actually, a co-worker asked me this several years ago, and my answer was,

She said, "had had had had had had had had had had had!"

Which I still think is correct.

His answer was something like,

Had had had "had".  Had Had had "had, had", Had had more of a chance to win.

or something like that.

--f2

-------------------------------------
  We have met the enemy and he is us.
  --Pogo


Newsgroups: rec.puzzles