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Aug-08-13
 | | al wazir: <Abdel Irada: [W]hat you say is in an alien language to me. Have I not warned you that I am no mathematician?> You don't have to be a mathematician to speak mathematics, just as you don't have to be an Arab to speak Arabic. |
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| Aug-08-13 | | johnnyb3: <AI> My hint was this: <n is 6 times a square and n+1 and 2n+1 are squares> I convinced myself of this on the back of an envelope, but if you trust me, then this thins out your search a lot! The second n you consider is the one that works. |
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| Aug-08-13 | | micartouse: <Sneaky: Oh, I think lying with statistics is what it's all about. Anytime the Simpson's paradox rears its ugly head, you are dealing with situations of "too few samples" to draw a meaningful conclusion.> At work today, we had a trend that confused the management and seemed to contradict our proposal. We split the data up into two sets and the trend reversed in both subsets! Having visited Stumpers page recently, I was quick to remark, "A classic case of Simpson's Paradox," just to get some geek cred and hopefully make somebody Google it to make sure I wasn't bs-ing. Thanks Stumpers page for helping me get my proposal signed! |
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| Aug-09-13 | | Abdel Irada: <al wazir: <Abdel Irada: [W]hat you say is in an alien language to me. Have I not warned you that I am no mathematician?> You don't have to be a mathematician to speak mathematics, just as you don't have to be an Arab to speak Arabic.> In either case, you must somehow learn the "language" in order to understand it. ∞ |
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| Aug-09-13 | | Abdel Irada: <johnnyb3: <AI> My hint was this: <n is 6 times a square and n+1 and 2n+1 are squares>> Ah. In retrospect, that makes a great deal of sense. In prospect, it seemed to me all I could do was plug in numbers to test whether they satisfied the condition, and plugging in numbers was what I was doing in any case. ∞ |
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| Aug-10-13 | | PinnedPiece: === For English Majors Only ===
1. There is at least one word in English that has a plural form (somewhat antique) that shares NO letters in common with the singular. What word is that? (Hint: singular is an ancient English word, still quite commonly used, especially away from the city.) 2. There is an Indian word, now common in California, that is the shortest word in English with all five vowels. (Hint: 7 letters) 3. Add one letter to this one-syllable word to make another word three syllables long: CAME. 4. "Fiji" has three dotted letters in it. Somewhere in the English speaking world there is a geographical feature with five dotted letters in a row. Where? (Hint: It isn't in the U.S., or even the N. hemisphere) 5. Decode this and you win!
968
946
(Hint: the decoder can be found in virtually any building, including your domicile) . |
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Aug-10-13
 | | OhioChessFan: ===
Answers:
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2. Sequoia
3. Cameo
5. You Win
Those were immediate. I have to think about the other two. |
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Aug-10-13
| | OhioChessFan: =========
Answers
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1. cow, kine (reading the King James Bible pays off!)
4. No idea, thinking it's in Australia. |
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Aug-10-13
| | al wazir: <PinnedPiece: === For English Majors Only ===> My last English course was in high school, but I'll try your quiz anyway. 1. hog; plural, swine. (Yes, I know "hogs" is a plural too.) Also "chicken" and "poultry" or "fowls." 2. Everyone knows this one. But how many know what Chief Sequoia's greatest achievement was? Hint: It was language-related. 3. OK, "cameo" is obvious. But how about "amice" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amice), which is trisyllabic in Italian. (You didn't say it had to be an English word.) 4. Damn, I should know this one. I think it's in India. I suppose you aren't looking for umlauts, since you specified "English-speaking." 5. I figured this out, but I see <OCF> is ahead of me. (I saw his answer to #1 before I saw the question, but I knew that too.) |
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Aug-10-13
| | OhioChessFan: Yeah, I wondered about umlauts, since referencing Fiji is a typical red herring statement. |
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Aug-10-13
| | OhioChessFan: 1. I don't buy fowls, since that is simply the plural of fowl. All birds are fowls, thought it's most often used of chickens. Poultry isn't bad, but I don't think it quite fits the idea of "One ______, two ______". which I think would define a plural. Poultry and swine are more a collective than a plural. |
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| Aug-10-13 | | Abdel Irada: <al wazir: 3. OK, "cameo" is obvious. But how about "amice" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amice), which is trisyllabic in Italian. (You didn't say it had to be an English word.)> One objection: "Amice" does not contain "came," which I think narrows it down to "cameo." ∞ |
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| Aug-10-13 | | Abdel Irada: <5. Decode this and you win!
968
946
(Hint: the decoder can be found in virtually any building, including your domicile)> When I edited the Aptos Times, I had to keep in regular contact with a staff of 31 writers and assistant/associate editors. It wouldn't do to have to refer to the phone chart every time I needed to call one of them, so I worked out a mnemonic technique: I converted each of their numbers into a "word" (sometimes an actual word, sometimes an approximation of one), and memorized those instead of trying to remember 31 seven-digit numbers. ∞ |
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Aug-11-13
| | al wazir: <Abdel Irada: One objection: "Amice" does not contain "came">. It contains the *letters* of "came." FWIW, Google returns hits for ACAME, ECAME, ICAME, OCAME, UCAME, YCAME, CAMEA, CAMEE, CAMEI, and CAMEU. They include proper names, acronyms, abbreviations, and foreign words. Some of them are trisyllabic. |
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| Aug-11-13 | | Abdel Irada: <al wazir>: I think this instruction is pretty specific, and does not allow your solution: <3. Add one letter to this one-syllable word to make another word three syllables long: CAME.> You have not added one letter to the monosyllabic word <CAME>, nor do the instructions appear to allow room for anagrams of that word; therefore your answer, however inventive, cannot be correct. ∞ |
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| Aug-14-13 | | PinnedPiece: English Majors Quiz:
1. There is at least one word in English that has a plural form (somewhat antique) that shares NO letters in common with the singular. <<>Cow-Kine.> Indeed similar to pig-swine. 2. There is an Indian word, now common in California, that is the shortest word in English with all five vowels.
<<>Sequoia it is>. Don't know the answer to <al wazir>'s reply stumper. 3. Add one letter to this one-syllable word to make another word three syllables long: <<>CAMEO it is>. 4. "Fiji" has three dotted letters in it. Somewhere in the English speaking world there is a geographical feature with five dotted letters in a row. Where? <<>Lake Mijiji in Australia >. Never been there. 5. Decode this and you win!
968
946
<YOU WIN
<<<>from a phone dial, of course, as <AI> indicated.>> > Top prize shared between <OCF> and <aw>. . |
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Aug-14-13
| | al wazir: <PinnedPiece: Top prize shared between <OCF> and <aw>.> He answered first, so I think he wins on tie-breaker points. <Don't know the answer to <al wazir>'s reply stumper.> Sequoia, knowing only that white men recorded their words by making marks on paper to represent the sounds, decided to do the same. He invented an alphabet for his own Indian language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherok... Considering how long it took for alphabets to get invented in the various civilizations of the Middle East and how long it took for them to spread to the rest of the world, I think this is a towering achievement, comparable to Soviet reverse-engineering of a number of U.S. weapon systems beginning with the A-bomb. |
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Aug-16-13
 | | Sneaky: Fiji hijinks, and facetious sequoia. I like it. |
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| Aug-16-13 | | PinnedPiece: How many baseball records will now get an asterisk, with all the doping confessions and convictions? I estimate 15.
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Aug-18-13
| | al wazir: In foot races, horse races, and auto races the competitors go around the track in the *counterclockwise* direction. Even in baseball players run the bases counterclockwise. Is there any sport where the participants circulate *clockwise*? |
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| Aug-18-13 | | PinnedPiece: <al wazir> Counterclockwise: I'm thinking about it. What occurs to me is this: I have seen three different "manta ray tanks" in the U.S., two in Texas. One is at the "Aquarium" restaurant in the Kemah reort, Houston area; one is a tank at the awuarium in Dallas...at each of these tanks, filled with up to 50 or more rays (they are fed special food by the visitors--the rays nibble the food out of your fingers) they develop a circling pattern that is counterclockwise. Every time.
I think sailboat race courses are set in a clockwise pattern when the wind allows... . |
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| Aug-18-13 | | nok: I don't know, but I know people circulating clockwise in museums are annoying. And I don't care if they're left-handed. |
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| Aug-18-13 | | Shams: <al wazir> <Is there any sport where the participants circulate *clockwise*?> Musical chairs, but only in the Southern Hemisphere. |
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| Aug-18-13 | | talisman: <al wazir> Baseball... only if you count Jimmy Piersall.....(going around the bases backwards after a home run) :) |
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Aug-18-13
| | al wazir: <PinnedPiece: I have seen three different "manta ray tanks" in the U.S., two in Texas. One is at the "Aquarium" restaurant in the Kemah reort, Houston area; one is a tank at the awuarium in Dallas...at each of these tanks, filled with up to 50 or more rays (they are fed special food by the visitors--the rays nibble the food out of your fingers) they develop a circling pattern that is counterclockwise.> The Monterey Aquarium has a tank in which a school of sardines swim round and round, all in the same direction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSrV...). Whether they ever reverse, and if so, how they accomplish it, I can't say from my own observations. My attention span isn't long enough. |
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