| Author |
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| Chuck |
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:42 am Post subject: 1 |
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| Huge errors are my favorite kind. They're easier to spot. |
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| johndoby |
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:25 am Post subject: 0 |
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| After seeing everyone else's answer and going over my calculations, I found my mistake! The beauty of math...one error = colossal miscalculation. |
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| johndoby |
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:08 am Post subject: -1 |
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Hi everyone! This is my first post on the board.
I got 747.5 as the answer to Part 1...i did this on paper, so I could be way off. |
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| John Dalbec* |
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:20 am Post subject: -2 |
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| or maybe SPlashes of (s)lung (p)aint? |
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| John Dalbec* |
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: -3 |
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| How about (g)one (a)miss = (s)tray? |
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| anon* |
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject: -4 |
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| Gone Amiss: Using Logain's last clue, the first pair should be somthing like (c)leaning (a)gent = (s)oap, which would spell SLASHES, which would be all over the place to create the mess caused by a knife. |
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| Logain |
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:14 pm Post subject: -5 |
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For Gone Amiss, the flavortext does mention blink of an eye for a reason which most people solved for...but the actual answer needs to satisfy the final inferred question in the text...namely what could actually cause the mess.
Also, so you don't overthink this one...look at the puzzle this way....what would your answer be if the puzzle was written with nothing at all missing and this was a very simple/basic two-step puzzle. |
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| Salty |
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:13 am Post subject: -6 |
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| I feel honoured - I got my own points division. I reckon I scored pi points out of five on this one |
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| Neo |
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 5:26 pm Post subject: -7 |
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| Anon, I edited your post to insert the invis tags. |
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| Gomez* |
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:48 pm Post subject: -8 |
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No worries. For future reference, if you want to make something invisible you need to put the words you want to hide inbetween two "invisible" tags, like this:
{invisible}I want to make this text invisible{/invisible}.
Of course, when you do it, you need to swap the curly { brackets for straight [ brackets. Welcome to the boards! |
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| Anonymous* |
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 4:18 am Post subject: -9 |
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| Also, so sorry i kinda didnt invisible-ize my ideas, im totally new at his, member? |
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| anonymous* |
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:48 am Post subject: -10 |
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i think the third part of this is (the what am i?) is a STRAW.
The last starw brings out anger in ppl (this is the last straw!)
yet the man in me is too weak to argue(a straw man argument doesnt put up a good fight)
the shortest starw puts u to the task (if u pull out the shortest starw , u hav to do the chore or w/e)
I will break under pressure (straws break, of course.)
Yet i help defy gravity (changing the air pressure and sucking on a straw brings things up wards)
i dont know if u guys still needed help on this one, and i hope not cuz it was the first thing i thought of. i have no clue how the website works. how do i "solve" the problem? |
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| anon* |
Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:51 pm Post subject: -11 |
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| For Gome Amiss: I was thinking that the first part of the puzzle was the first letter of the solution. I went with ? (?) = Can Snap - Fingers, for a solution of FLASHES (in the blink of an eye). |
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| Logain |
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:55 am Post subject: -12 |
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So far the answers for IV, Gone Amiss are close but not the intended answer. I think that puzzle had the most clean cut division of points ranging from from the 0-5 scoring than any other. Salty's official answer was the only wrong answer that fell into a different scoring division based on his explanation though.  |
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| phw |
Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 5:13 am Post subject: -13 |
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8 to 5 answer
uni + corn / verse / form / trust
bi + got / pedal / shop / king
tri + fling / dent / angle / vial
quarter + staff / master / lies / back
non + fat / stop / sense / zero
dec + ant / ease / ode / law
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| Duke Gnome |
Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 10:16 am Post subject: -14 |
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| Before it disappears, could someone spoil 'Now open from 8 to 5', the only one still unsolved on this thread? |
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| Salty |
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:20 am Post subject: -15 |
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| I got the same as Gomez. It's one of those ones that once you think of the answer it seems very easy, but it can take forever to think of the answer! |
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| Gomez* |
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:58 am Post subject: -16 |
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| I had (invisible spoiler) Straw. Line 1 - The last straw. Line 2 - Straw man debating. Line 3 - The short straw. Line 4 - A drinking straw. |
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| louswon |
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:08 pm Post subject: -17 |
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| Number 3 must be the moon, causing anger, man in the moon, defying gravity, whatever[/spoiler] |
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| Kd |
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:10 am Post subject: -18 |
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I think I ended up with 539 seconds, or 8mins 59s, but I did work it out entirely on paper and my rounding was a bit dodgy... I didn't twig at the bit where it's meant to start over, mostly because my working meant it didn't.  |
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| L'lanmal |
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 1:03 pm Post subject: -19 |
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Brute force is really the proper (easiest) way to solve #1.
But if you want to make sure you didn't make a mistake, there is a "back of a napkin" type of calculation to make. Skater A should be on the strip about 25/100s of the time, and skater B about 25/130s of the time. If they were randomly bouncing around the rink rather than skating in a circle, they should overlap about 25/130*25/100 = 25/520 = 25 seconds per 520 seconds skating. So you should expect your answer to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 520 seconds.
Since they are skating in circles, their positions are not necessarily independant of each other, so this should not be trusted as exact answer. |
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| Chuck |
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:23 am Post subject: -20 |
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| k* wrote: |
| Logain wrote: |
Gone Amiss was definitely one of the ones I could make some comments about after seeing the slightly wrong paths some of the answers took.
There were several people who solved this one so I wouldn't want to say anything that could spoil it yet. |
Um, doesn't one skater have to get off the ice in order for them to pass each other? It will never break |
Leap frog? |
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| k* |
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:13 am Post subject: -21 |
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| Logain wrote: |
Gone Amiss was definitely one of the ones I could make some comments about after seeing the slightly wrong paths some of the answers took.
There were several people who solved this one so I wouldn't want to say anything that could spoil it yet. |
Um, doesn't one skater have to get off the ice in order for them to pass each other? It will never break |
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| Logain |
Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:29 am Post subject: -22 |
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Gone Amiss was definitely one of the ones I could make some comments about after seeing the slightly wrong paths some of the answers took.
There were several people who solved this one so I wouldn't want to say anything that could spoil it yet. |
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| Oscar |
Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:36 am Post subject: -23 |
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I should have thought by symmetry the final answer would be in the same form as the other clues
e.g. (w)hip (b)lows = (l)ashes
The problem of these two words not being directly derivable from the discarded letters on the left means that other similar solutions are possible
e.g. (p)irate (b)lows
The lack of vowels in the left hand leaders means that it's pretty much impossible to find any such confirmation that you've found the definitive clueing, although I think the flavortext 'blink of an eye' is confirmation of the lashes theory |
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| Gomez |
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject: -24 |
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| Damnit. I had pretty much exactly the same as Salty except that the only thing I could think of for lack umber was (b)lack (n)number and got Dress (as in 'little black number'). As such I got LASHNS which was enough to throw me off |
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| phw |
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject: -25 |
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I got the same as Salty for Gone Amiss except that I used
(b)lack (n)umber = eight (as in 8 ball)
not that it really mattered, since both give an E. I think I answered eyelashes.
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| Samadhi |
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:17 pm Post subject: -26 |
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For number 1 I used java. Took about 12 lines. [Edit: Not including the public static void and all that]
I also used java for number two. That took a few more lines. |
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| Salty |
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:35 pm Post subject: -27 |
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Gone Amiss was the one that caused me most trouble. I think I got mostly there, but didn't get it over the line.
Observations:
the words in the clues may all have been missing their initial letter, so:
?
(s)hoe (l)inks -> laces = L + aces
(s)lightly (o)pen -> ajar = A + jar
(t)all (c)hair -> stool = S + tool
(p)ants (h)older -> hanger = H + anger
(b)lack (l)umber -> ebony = E + bony
(s)word (c)over -> sheath = S + heath
that gave "lashes". I thought maybe splashes had obscured what was written on the page or eyelashes (I lashes), but I wasn't too sure on where to go from here.
Also worth noting that the title follows a similar style G+one A+miss
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| Courk |
Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 4:17 am Post subject: -28 |
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| I noticed that the cycle started over after the ice was at half strength, but I didn't fully trust myself and finished it to double check. |
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| Neo |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:11 pm Post subject: -29 |
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| Note that the change of image has no impact on any of the puzzles. Courk just rocks and provided this wonderfully awesome new image to use for Potpourris. |
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| Salty |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 6:52 pm Post subject: -30 |
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| My solution was entirely inelegant. I used the same method that Courk did although given the cycle length observation, it halved the work. |
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| Tahnan |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 6:52 pm Post subject: -31 |
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| I tried using Excel first. It hurt. Man, I miss Lotus 123 sometimes. |
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| Chuck |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:28 pm Post subject: -32 |
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People in the southern hemisphere are lucky. They could go outside and try it for real.
I eventually used increment sizes that were powers of ½ to get rid of the round off error. They all gave exact answers. |
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| Courk |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:43 pm Post subject: -33 |
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| I just used a list of numbers in Excel and had some entries that were equations, etc. It wasn't pretty by any means, but it gave the answer. Brute force all the way! |
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| Antrax |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:08 pm Post subject: -34 |
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| Chuck, for future reference it's better to just work with ints - I used 30 ticks per sec and just advanced the simulation tick by tick. |
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| Chuck |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 1:51 pm Post subject: -35 |
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| My computer simulation sometimes gave me 520 seconds and sometimes 537½ seconds, depending on the size of the increment that I chose to move the skaters. It took me awhile to realize what was going on. Due to round off error, one of them would finish the last leg slightly ahead of the other so that their total time together on the center was slightly less then 25 seconds, so they'd have to go through another loop and finally break the ice when they were both on the center again, 17½ seconds later. I was lucky that I did more test runs instead of turning in the first answer that the simulation produced. |
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| Antrax |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 11:40 am Post subject: -36 |
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| I don't think the aforementioned answer is more elegant than brute-forcing, unless there's some intensely clever way of getting to it that I've missed. It's easy to compute cycle length but I don't see how that gives you information on mutual time spent on ice other than going through it step-by-step. |
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| Tahnan |
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: -37 |
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| Salty wrote: |
| I need to dig out where I tried this one, but if it helps confirm your answer, I think I got something like... |
Oh, sure, do something elegant with it. As opposed to doing what I did, which was write a python script (which I did not, alas, save for posterity). Still, it got me the same answer, so hey. |
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| Oscar |
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:08 pm Post subject: -38 |
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You might try looking for prefixes especially those that may or may not fit in with the opening hours  |
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