HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: myrberger@elmer.e.kth.se (Johan Myrberger)
Subject: 3x3x3-puzzles
Reply-To: myrberger@elmer.e.kth.se (Johan Myrberger)
Organization: School of EE, Royal Institute of Technolgy
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 17:24:42 GMT

I have a file with descriptions of puzzles that in their final state are
a 3x3x3 cube. The file is in some sort of ASCII-graphics.

If you would like to have a copy of it and perhaps add a puzzle please
MAIL me.

I have just added a couple of puzzles and at the moment there are 16 of them.
Surely there must be more... Perhaps you know another?

Johan Myrberger

MAIL: myrberger@elmer.e.kth.se
From: widenius@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Risto Widenius)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: teez brainbuster
Keywords: peg puzzle
Date: 11 Oct 92 13:53:42 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

huh@wccf.mit.edu (GENE SIMON HUH) writes:
>     I have a puzzle at my house called "Teez Brainbuster".  It consists of 
>nine holes in a block of plastic, all lined up.  The initial setup of the 
>puzzle consists of four blue pegs in holes #1 thru #4 and four red pegs in 
>holes #6 thru #9, like this:
>         B B B B O R R R R
>where B = blue peg
>      R = red peg
> and  O = empty hole
>The object is to switch the positions of the blue and red pegs, i.e.,
>        R R R R O B B B B 
>The allowable moves are: 
>  a) move one blue peg into an adjacent empty hole
>  b) move one red peg into an adjacent empty hole
>  c) a peg may "jump" over one (and only one) peg of either color, provided 
>that the hole that the peg "jumps" into is empty 
>  d) blue pegs can only be moved to the right; red pegs can only be moved to 
>the left

SPOILER ALERT!

The solution was surprisingly hard to find even using 2 blue and 2 red
pegs (actually I only figured it after increasing to 3 pegs of each
color). This is hard to read, but maybe more clear than a verbal
explanation:

	B B B B O R R R R
	B B B O B R R R R	first we'll interleave the pegs..
	B B B R B O R R R
	B B B R B R O R R
	B B B R O R B R R
	B B O R B R B R R
	B O B R B R B R R
	B R B O B R B R R
	B R B R B O B R R
	B R B R B R B O R
	B R B R B R B R O	from here on it's obvious and simple..
	B R B R B R O R B
	B R B R O R B R B
	B R O R B R B R B
	O R B R B R B R B
	R O B R B R B R B
	R R B O B R B R B
	R R B R B O B R B
	R R B R B R B O B
	R R B R B R O B B
	R R B R O R B B B
	R R O R B R B B B
	R R R O B R B B B
	R R R R B O B B B	and the last..
	R R R R O B B B B

--
widenius@cc.helsinki.fi "But now there was worse." -Bernard Levin
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: What's the answer to this ough problem?
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 01:43:50 GMT

In article <baljeual.718587223@uther> 
  baljeual@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu) writes:
>ough
>
>A long time ago in a spelling book, I learned that there are 4 different
>ways to pronounce the above 4 letter sequence, depending on the word that 
>contains it.  However, that is wrong.  What's the real answer anyone?

Bazillions (is this in the FAQ?  I remember a discussion on this recently).

C "The tough coughs and hiccoughs as he ploughs through the dough" Frog
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: viktor@mks.com (Viktor Haag)
Subject: Re: Word ending in 5 Consonants
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:41:24 GMT

In article <61000@mimsy.umd.edu> sjsmith@cs.umd.edu (Stephen Joseph Smith) writes:
>asimov@wk223.nas.nasa.gov (Daniel A. Asimov) writes:
>>I am thinking of a word which ends with 5 consecutive
>>consonants (no, none of them is a 'w' or a 'y').
>>There is only one vowel in the entire word.
>>The word is Scrabble-admissible, and not particularly 
>>uncommon.
>
>Ok...
>
>
>>Another one of its strengths is that this word does not
>>appear in this sentence.
>
>Ooh!  Tough!

Bahhh!  Child's Play -- if it isn't "strengths", then it must be
"lengths" ....


-- 
Viktor Haag					viktor@mks.com
Mortice Kern Systems				(519) 884-2251
35 King North, Waterloo, Ontario		ext. 41
"we are not thugs. we are vitamin supplements to justice ..." | a selector
From: RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: blue eyes, brown eyes revisited.
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:39:47 GMT
 <13OCT199213432470@zeus.tamu.edu>

if there is one blue-eye, it is not logically a waste of time for him
not to say, "the meeting's a waste of time."

this is because if the same thing happens a hundred years down the road,
with two blue-eyes instead of one, both of these blue-eyes will die just
because of this one utterance by the previous blue-eye.  he will thus be
responsible for the unnecessary death of a (hypothetical) blue-eye.  he
would, thus, go along with the meeting, and establish the base case of the
induction, in order to save future generations of blue-eyes.  saving future
generations of blue-eyes is hardly a waste of time.
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: baljeual@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu)
Subject: Chess problem 2
Summary: What's the most?
Keywords: queens checkmate
Organization: Calvin College
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:19:41 GMT

Ok, What's the most queens you can have without causing checkmate.
Give a position with n queens (n is huge) so that you can place 
a lone king somewhere on the board where he won't be in checkmate.
From: karr@cs.cornell.edu (David Karr)
Subject: Re: Spaces in "C"
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 13:42:10 GMT

In article <10575@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> warwick@cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>	1. Is it possible to translate ANY "C" program into an
>		equivalent one containing no whitespace?

One suspects the answer is "yes," as your example managed to answer
the objections I was able to think of.

>	2. What method will minimise the amount of overhead (or
>		maximise the underhead, if reducing spaces saves
>		characters)?

I suspect this is theoretically impossible, i.e. there is no program
that will do it in every case.  Since you say "equivalent program"
then any kind of rewriting is allowed, i.e. we could imagine that the
program is written from scratch to produce the same input and output
with no regard to the contents of the original program source.  But
there is no procedure that will tell you for sure in all cases whether
two programs have the same output for the same input.  So, I propose
that if you have a program text of 10,000 characters, and you believe
it to be minimum, you still have no way of knowing if one of the other
95^9999 or so texts of 9,999 characters or less is actually a legal
program that does the same thing as yours.

-- David Karr (karr@cs.cornell.edu)
From: lsonko@pearl.tufts.edu (FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: VCR Plus Codes
Date: 15 Oct 92 21:48:00 GMT
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Oct12.213358.10084@ulysses.att.com>, tom@ulysses.att.com (Tom Smith) writes...
>In article <1992Oct12.154619.17062@draco.macsch.com> m_reymond@macsch.com writes:
>[ ... ]
>>Has anyone out there figgered out how the VCR Plus codes are derived?  
[ ... ]
>>I suspect there is some sort of encryption. I have also noticed that
>>prime time shows on channels 2-13 have codes with the fewest digits.
> 
>I've wondered about this as well.  The shows starting at "standard" times
>and lasting "standard" lengths also tend to be have shorter codes than
>those at odd times.  A show starting at 10:00 pm and lasting an hour
>has a shorter code than one starting at 10:05 and lasting 45 minutes.
> 
>This would certainly tend to reduce the average code length.  I wonder
>if the code designers calculated statistics of current shows and used
>a Huffman-like method to assign codes relative to probabilities.
> 
>Tom Smith.
>tom@ulysses.att.com

very good!  yes, it is a huffman code stacked with an encryption algorythm.
or something of the sort.  I just read a write up of someone in a Cryptology
magazine figuring out the code.  The magazine is called "Cryptolgia" or
something like that.  The code is up to 8 numbers; he figured out up to 6 digit
codes.  

-------------------------------
but this is not the place for such a discussion.
move on over to sci.crypt!!
--------------------------------

enjoy
lee
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: asimov@wk223.nas.nasa.gov (Daniel A. Asimov)
Subject: Re: Word ending in 5 Consonants
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 01:34:19 GMT

I admit that I hadn't realized that "lengths" and "twelfths"
could solve my amended question (nor that "strengths" could
solve the original one). 

HOWEVER, if you'll still bear with me, no one has suggested the
word I had in mind, so let me try to narrow it down even more:
---------------------------------------------------------------

Can you think of a (not too uncommon) seven-letter word, 
Scrabble-eligible, with the consonant-vowel pattern CVCCCCC
OTHER THAN the word "lengths" ?

No fair using a computer search of a word-list!!!!

--Daz
 

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: hsieh@math.toronto.edu (Paul Hsieh)
Subject: Re: Dividing the plane
Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 04:47:15 GMT

In article <1b36afINN8so@uwm.edu> radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (David G Radcliffe) writes:
>First an easy one:
>
>Divide the plane into three disjoint subsets so that every line
>intersects exactly two of them.

Colour every point (0,x), x real and non zero, BLUE.  Colour (0,0) GREEN.
Colour the rest RED.

>Next, an extremely difficult problem:
>
>Show that the plane can be partitioned into three subsets so that
>every line intersects exactly two of them, and each of the subsets
>is dense.

Geez, you're right, this question _is_ somewhat harder.  I'll have to
think about it.

Paul

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
Subject: Re: Chess problem (answer)
Organization: Rogaland University Centre
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 10:08:40 GMT

>In article <1992Oct7.153531.25752@hsr.no> onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes:
>>
>>As many discovered, 5 is the smallest number of queens which will force
>>checkmate regardless of the kings position.
>
>Oh?  No one has posted an arrangement of 5 queens in which all of them are
>be protected.  With the patterns posted, after the queens are placed, it is
>possible to place the king so it will be able to capture one of the queens.
>Thus the king will not be in checkmate.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Dave Dodson		                             dodson@convex.COM
>Convex Computer Corporation      Richardson, Texas      (214) 497-4234
>
Oh yes, they did.

       xxxxxxxx
       xxxQxxxx
       xxxQxxxx
       xxxQxxxx
       xxxQxxxx
       xxxxxxxx
       xxxxxxxx
       xxxQxxxx  


Onar.
From: radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (David G Radcliffe)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Dividing the plane
Date: 9 Oct 1992 05:45:51 GMT
Organization: UW-Milwaukee Math Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4

First an easy one:

Divide the plane into three disjoint subsets so that every line
intersects exactly two of them.


Next, an extremely difficult problem:

Show that the plane can be partitioned into three subsets so that
every line intersects exactly two of them, and each of the subsets
is dense.

--
David Radcliffe                                
radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
From: ronnie@cisco.com (Ronnie B. Kon)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: GRY
Date: 13 Oct 92 20:51:53 GMT
Organization: cisco Systems, Incorporated

In article <1auk07INN7f6@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, cb971@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Marion L. Rappa) writes:
|> 
|>    Are there more than three words in the English language
|> that end in gry?
|> -- 
|> 
|> Muntz Rappa
|> cb971@cleveland.Freenet.Edu

How about we start a new group rec.puzzles.words-ending-in-gry?
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ronnie B. Kon           | "Boy, they were big on crematoriums, weren't they?"
ronnie@cisco.com        |
(415) 688-4592          |           -- George Bush at Auschwitz, Sept 1989
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
From: dagjo@ifi.uio.no (Dag Espolin Johnson)
Subject: Re: Height of a building
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 15:12:18 GMT
Originator: dagjo@sognsvann.ifi.uio.no


In article <1992Oct7.192415.217922@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>, dsbb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D. SPENCER BEECHER) writes:
> How would you accurately measure the height of a ten or twelve
> story building?
> 
> Tools at your disposal include a cigarette lighter, a plastic
> ruler (12 inches, no metric calibration), a cheap wristwatch
> (analog, no second hand), five thumb tacks, an altimeter that
> reads kilometers plus or minus 1%, twelve meters of acrylic
> plastic tubing (clear, rigid, one half inch diameter) with a
> rubber stopper for each end, a large green wax marker (jumbo
> crayon), fourteen empty beer cans (aluminum), three pencils,
> eight marbles (clear glass, 12.7mm diameter), a thermometer
> (0-100 degrees C), four feet of string (breaks at 60lbs),
> twelve sheets of 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper, a pocket knife, and
> a goldfish in a six inch (diameter) round goldfish bowl.
> 
> It is a dark night (no moon), and the solution is required
> before morning.  Assume everything works for the purpose for
> which it was designed.  You have access to the building which
> has lights, running water, and no windows.  You are able to get
> on the roof or outside the building at ground level with whatever
> tools are on the list.  There are no lights outside the building.
> All the stairway doors are locked (you must use the freight elevator).
> 
> Accuracy of plus or minus one meter is required.

This one is realy a long shot, but I try:

With the altimeter, try to read the preassure of the water at ground level.
Then do the same on the top floor. Since waterpressure is more sensitive to
hight than air (ie more heavy) it should make the +-1% error of the altimeter
to no problem.

Dag Espolin Johnson  -  dagjo@ifi.uio.no
From: eschultz@tvland.UUCP (Eric Schultz)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Word ending in 5 Consonants
Date: 8 Oct 92 10:56:13 MDT
Organization: The TV LAND BBS

Um, would that word be 'strengths'?  :/  Or lengths, as in 'Cockroaches can grow to lengths of over three inches?'

--- Via UCI v1.11 (C-Net Amiga)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric E. Schultz                        Greetings from... ____
                                                          /   | /
Usenet: burner.com!tvland!eschultz                       /    |/ LAND
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nick@informix.com (nick baxter)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Tell me more?
Date: 10 Oct 92 17:14:35 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

lordSnooty@cup.portal.com (Andrew - Palfreyman) writes:

>Kenneth Tolman poses:
>:Two good friends were walking in the woods on a hike, one was a mathematician,
>:the other a logician.  The mathematician said, "The sum of the ages of
>:my children is 12 years."
>:
>:The logician replied, "Don't tell me any more, there ages are: ... and ..."
>:
>:What were the ages and how did he know?

>The answer cannot be the expectation that the next phrase will be their
>product, since not knowing that gives no extra information.

Actually the logician did anticipate that the next piece of information
was going to be the product of the ages.  Additionally, he assumed that 
the mathematician was posing the type of problem where still more 
information would be required in order to decide between multiple
possible solutions. 

The real problem is that for some reason, they are not such good friends 
that the logician knows exactly how many children the mathematician has.
After running through all the possibilities (2-12), the logician determined
that only if the mathematician has 4 children, can the problem fall into
this familiar category (despite that fact the that the problem statement 
implies that the logician determined that there were only 2 children).  
The two possible solutions are (6,2,2,2) and (4,4,3,1).  

Anticipating that he would eventually be told about the mathematician's
eldest daughter's piano lessons, the logician concludes that the ages are
6, 2, 2, and 2.  (I suppose that he could have also anticipated hearing 
that the mathematician's youngest likes strawberry ice cream, given the
other solution).

Nick Baxter
nick@informix.com
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: What's the answer to this ough problem?
Summary: I can find 9.
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:01:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: aurora.1992Oct9.150143.7027
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group

In article <baljeual.718587223@uther> baljeual@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu) writes:
>ough
>
>A long time ago in a spelling book, I learned that there are 4 different
>ways to pronounce the above 4 letter sequence, depending on the word that 
>contains it.  However, that is wrong.  What's the real answer anyone?

U:	Yarborough
OU:	bough
OE:	dough
O:	bought
UU:	through
UF:	enough
OF:	trough
OK:	lough
UP:	hiccough

That should be most of them.  All of the above words can be found in
Webster's 3rd New International dictionary.
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Height of a building
Date: 8 Oct 92 23:58:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: aurora.1992Oct8.235856.6059
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group

In article <1992Oct7.192415.217922@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> dsbb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D. SPENCER BEECHER) writes:
>How would you accurately measure the height of a ten or twelve
>story building?
>Tools include ... 5 thumb tacks, 12 m acrylic tube, paper, string, ...

Make a helicopter-whirligig thingie out of some paper and a thumb
tack.  Time how long it takes to fall 12 meters, using either the
watch or a pendulum.  Take it to the top of the building and time
how long it takes to fall to the ground.

Then again, you could simply go into the building, measure the
height of each step between the floor and the ceiling, and add
them all up.
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
Xref: sparky rec.puzzles:6726 comp.theory:2165
From: shaw@toadflax.UCDavis.EDU (Rob Shaw)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,comp.theory
Subject: Penrose Tiles / Beatty Seq's.
Date: 10 Oct 92 03:49:36 GMT
Reply-To: shaw@toadflax.UCDavis.EDU (Rob Shaw)
Followup-To: sci.math
Organization: UC Davis, EECS Division of Computer Science


A while ago I was reading a Gardner-ish rec math book, and
it contained an update about Penrose tilings. I would 
appreciate anyone giving me pointers to the material below,
since I have completely forgotten where I read this.

The are only a handful of Penrose (kite+dart) tilings as
shown by taking infinite strips across the tiling. These
strips come in a sequence containing "thin" and "thick"
strips. The sequence is a Beatty sequence.

Something like 

10010101001010010010010...

Could be a Beatty sequence, since one of the two elements
always appears alone, and the other appears alone or in
pairs.

This book also described how successive powers of the 
golden ratio, rounded up and down form complementary
Beatty sequences, and moreover, that one of these
sequences is something that was previously thought
to only be computable by some recursive method that 
required calculating all the terms preceding the 
desired one.

This is all from memory, so I may have gotten a few things
confused...

Please, anyone who can give me pointers to books/articles
about this material, please post or email.

Thanx!

Rob
From: tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Trevor German)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: TRAPPED BUBBLE
Date: 15 Oct 92 14:11:46 GMT
Organization: Imaging Systems Division, NCR Corp, Waterloo, Ont., CANADA


Subject: TRAPPED BUBBLE
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Organization: Imaging Systems Division, NCR Corp, Waterloo, Ont., CANADA


	Since some of you did not understand the question, I will
	attempt to repeat it with a little more clarity.


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

		Take a cylinder of _incompressible_ fluid. Attach a
	balloon inside the lid of the cylinder and seal the cylinder
	with the lid such that there is no air trapped within. THE
	BALOON HAS AIR IN IT.

		Now flip the cylinder upside down.

		The question is, what happens to the baloon. Does it
	get bigger or smaller. What happens to the pressure in the 
	baloon, does it change. What are the thermal effects if any.
	
		As a corolorary what would happen if the situation
	was reversed and the baloon was stuck INSIDE the bottom before
	the fluid was added, the tube sealed, and inverted.

		You may, for the purpose of discussion ignore atmosheric
	effects.

		The solution to the first case is relatively simple
	the second case is less expected.
	------------------------------------------------------------
--
       >|  "Only average people            | Trevor J German BSc    |<
       >|        never make mistakes."     | NCR, Waterloo, Ontario |<
       >| tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM | Canada.                |<
From: lordSnooty@cup.portal.com (Andrew - Palfreyman)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Tell me more?
Date: Fri,  9 Oct 92 15:37:37 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

Kenneth Tolman poses:
:Two good friends were walking in the woods on a hike, one was a mathematician,
:the other a logician.  The mathematician said, "The sum of the ages of
:my children is 12 years."
:
:The logician replied, "Don't tell me any more, there ages are: ... and ..."
:
:What were the ages and how did he know?

The answer cannot be the expectation that the next phrase will be their
product, since not knowing that gives no extra information.

Therefore the logician knew since he was a good friend and was
well familiar with the mathematician's family! Cheating?
Knowing even one of the children's ages of course solves the puzzle.
Knowing even the difference in their ages does too.

OK then, he knows the guy has twins. That'll do it.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
| lord snooty @the giant |  Would You Like Space Potatoes With That?       |
| poisoned electric head |              andrew_-_palfreyman@cup.portal.com |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: kjc7435@ultb.isc.rit.edu (K.J. Cater)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Sources for red fox puzzles sought.
Date: 16 Oct 92 14:09:17 GMT
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Originator: kjc7435@ultb

I am looking to collect red fox puzzles.  If you know of a firm that
sells these through the mail or in a retail/nationwide store, please
e-mail me at: "kjc7435@ritvax.isc.rit.edu".

Thanks!!!

K. Cater.
From: wilson@rhombus.cs.jhu.edu (Dwight Wilson)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Height of a building
Date: 9 Oct 92 02:42:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: blaze.1992Oct9.024249.12115
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University CS Department

In article <1992Oct8.213053.7070@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> bhayes@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Barry Hayes) writes:
>The problem doesn't state that you are limited to these tools, just
>that the tools at your disposal include these.  I would just take my
>Acme Building Height Measurer and point it at the building.  QED.

Not a wise thing to do.  Judging by the experience of emminent
researchers like W.E. Coyote and R. Runner, you would not get a
correct answer, and would almost certainly cause the building to collapse 
on you.