Logain Potpourri III

XI) What’s a Widget?

After going back to school and learning how to start a business from instructor Sparks, you decide to make some easy money, by constructing the Caddyshack factory to produce widgets in fantasyland.

The process for producing widgets is fairly easy, but the procedure and recipe for operating the equipment takes precision timing and materials that need to be added and used at very specific intervals to keep things going and widgets producing.

You produce widgets in a reactor using 5 stages. Your reactor requires, occurring in this order, a coolant ⁽¹⁾, a lubricant ⁽²⁾, a catalyst coating ⁽³⁾, and the widget ingredient ⁽⁴⁾. Once all these are complete, the reactor molds and presses out a single widget ⁽⁵⁾.  

Given the following requirements for your factory’s equipment, how long does it take to make a single widget?

A) During any of the 5 stages, only that process can occur. This means that when lubricant is being added, nothing else can occur. When a widget is being pressed, no coolant can be added, etc.

B) The coolant must be added within every 2 minutes, otherwise the reactor will overheat. It takes a full minute to add the coolant and it must be added uninterrupted.

C) The lubricant must be added within every 10 minutes, otherwise the reactor will lock up. It takes 2 minutes to completely add lubricant needed for the catalyst stage.

D) A full sample of catalyst coating must be added to the reactor before any widget material can be added. Catalyst material only lasts for 50 minutes before dissolving. It takes 10 minutes total to add the needed coating.

E) Widget material takes 8 minutes to add.

F) Pressing and molding a widget takes 2 minutes.

XII) The Wax Works

Standing back, he liked what he saw. One thing left to do for the perfect ambiance. He lit the plain wax candle on the center table and made sure it burned with a nice looking flame which accounted for the glow in the room. Now finished, he turned to leave, but not before lighting the wax candle along the wall near the door he exited out of.

Several hours later he returned. He blew out the candle near the door, which had melted down several inches by now. Then he walked over and looked at the room, still aglow with the candle on the table, with a bright flame atop, unchanged and without any hint of melting. It was exactly as he left it. Why is that?

XIII) Spelling Counts

"You always start out with nothing. If you ever want to make some money in the end, take my word for it… you're going to have to build things up for yourself one step at a time."

one is one

and two is two

then three’s an end

jump for four

because it goes into five, that is to say…

so we can split for six

since seven’s split

so eight would be?

XIV) Survey Says…

…those words are all out of order, and they just simply aren’t long enough.

DISCO

LIED

PROSE

VILLA
SUING

SKIVE

ROWED

HATES

Image by Courk.