Daily Challenges

[Peckris 2]

"Lighthouse" has 4 consonants together? Is that one of the 6?

[mrbadexample]

On 4/9/2020 at 12:22 PM, Paddy said:

2. What is the longest word with no tall letters (above the line like l, or below like g)? (All lower case.)

Best I can do is 11: unawareness.

[Paddy]

8 hours ago, mrbadexample said:

Best I can do is 11: unawareness.

That is good! It's not the one I had, but it has the same number of letters. I had nervousness. We'll count that one as solved.

[Paddy]

9 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

"Lighthouse" has 4 consonants together? Is that one of the 6?

That has only 4 consonants - the word I have has 6 together.

 

[Bronze & Copper Collector]

Without using "y", the only one I came up with, albeit accidentally,  was "catchphrase".

[DaveG38]

This is a simple one. What sentence was used by BT engineers to check the correct operation of all the alphabet keys on the keyboard on a telex machine? The correct answerer doesn't even get a 1967 penny as a prize.

[Sleepy]

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?

[Paddy]

1 hour ago, Bronze & Copper Collector said:

Without using "y", the only one I came up with, albeit accidentally,  was "catchphrase".

That's good! It works and does appear to be in modern dictionaries, so I can't fault it. The one I had is far older - latchstring - which is in the dictionary. Watchstrap is close, but officially should be two words or hyphenated, though perversely my spell check likes watchstrap but objects to latchstring! 

All solved now.

 

[DaveG38]

58 minutes ago, Sleepy said:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?

Correct, but no 1967 penny for you.

[Rob]

Daily challenges? Ebay.

Q. What's the best you can do this for?

A. £20 and price sent.

Best offer received £12

Replied with £20 - again.

Best offer received £15.

Replied with £20 - again.

Item purchased for, you guessed it - £20

Why do people ask the question, then ignore the answer?

[mrbadexample]

2 hours ago, DaveG38 said:

This is a simple one. What sentence was used by BT engineers to check the correct operation of all the alphabet keys on the keyboard on a telex machine? The correct answerer doesn't even get a 1967 penny as a prize.

The only other one I know is "pack my bags with five dozen boxes of juicy liquorice". I'm sure there's a name for it - pan something I expect.

[Diaconis]

1 hour ago, Rob said:

Why do people ask the question, then ignore the answer?

For the same reason when someone asks a question and when you answer them with the truth rather than what they want to hear, they accuse you of being hateful, intolerant and some kind of an -ophobe?

[Paddy]

On 4/11/2020 at 8:30 AM, Paddy said:

That is good! It's not the one I had, but it has the same number of letters. I had nervousness. We'll count that one as solved.

I woke in the middle of the night with a better answer: "inconvenience" which is 13. Strange how the brain works!

 

[mrbadexample]

17 minutes ago, Paddy said:

I woke in the middle of the night with a better answer: "inconvenience" which is 13. Strange how the brain works!

 

Depends on how you class the i. I had "seriousness" initially but didn't like using the i because it's not as short as the rest.

Plus you could stick an s on the end to make 14, should you so wish.

Edited May 1, 2020 by mrbadexample

[blakeyboy]

8 hours ago, Paddy said:

I woke in the middle of the night with a better answer: "inconvenience" which is 13. Strange how the brain works!

 

Classic way of solving problems.

We use our prefrontal cortex all the time, and assume it's good at solving problems and maths etc.

If I want to fix a real head scratcher on a piece of gear, I think very very hard about it, with no radio on and no interruptions or phone calls.

Then I deliberately do something else that is a mind- emptying thing- gardening is excellent.

After a few hours- BANG - the solution. using your prefrontal cortex tends to block ideas from the ancient primitive MASSIVE supercomputer in the back of your

head, so when you concentrate for a long time on a problem, this loads up that supercomputer with a program, and it starts its work.

Only when you stop 'thinking' does it break through with the answer.... it happens very quickly. So many equipment repair men used to smoke like chimneys, because they would have a cigarette and 'stand back' mentally from the job, and there's the answer. An old friend of mine would stop, light a fag, and within 30 seconds know what the problem was, and  put the cigarette down on the edge of the bench, leaving a two inch burn since he was then engrossed solving the problem.

The edge of his bench was a long line of burn marks.  He got through 40 a day, but maybe only actually smoked two of them!

He didn't care about the cost, since he reckoned his repair rate was so good it more than paid for the fags....

[Peckris 2]

8 hours ago, mrbadexample said:

Depends on how you class the i. I had "seriousness" initially but didn't like using the i because it's not as short as the rest.

Plus you could stick an s on the end to make 14, should you so wish.

I'd love to create a font that's all the same height - it would come out like this:

aBcDeFGHiJKLmnoPQrsTuvwxYz (I had to mess around with "Size" to get that to work - in my theoretical version, the upper case letters would be the same height as the lower case).

[Paddy]

36 minutes ago, blakeyboy said:

Classic way of solving problems.

We use our prefrontal cortex all the time, and assume it's good at solving problems and maths etc.

If I want to fix a real head scratcher on a piece of gear, I think very very hard about it, with no radio on and no interruptions or phone calls.

Then I deliberately do something else that is a mind- emptying thing- gardening is excellent.

After a few hours- BANG - the solution. using your prefrontal cortex tends to block ideas from the ancient primitive MASSIVE supercomputer in the back of your

head, so when you concentrate for a long time on a problem, this loads up that supercomputer with a program, and it starts its work.

Only when you stop 'thinking' does it break through with the answer.... it happens very quickly. So many equipment repair men used to smoke like chimneys, because they would have a cigarette and 'stand back' mentally from the job, and there's the answer. An old friend of mine would stop, light a fag, and within 30 seconds know what the problem was, and  put the cigarette down on the edge of the bench, leaving a two inch burn since he was then engrossed solving the problem.

The edge of his bench was a long line of burn marks.  He got through 40 a day, but maybe only actually smoked two of them!

He didn't care about the cost, since he reckoned his repair rate was so good it more than paid for the fags....

Yes I have used this many times before - I tend to use a cryptic crossword to put me to sleep at night. Often I fall asleep with some clue and awake with the answer.

As Confucius says: "Man who goes to sleep with problem in mind wakes with solution in hand".  (Or was that about something else?!)

 

[Rob]

17 minutes ago, Paddy said:

Yes I have used this many times before - I tend to use a cryptic crossword to put me to sleep at night. Often I fall asleep with some clue and awake with the answer.

As Confucius says: "Man who goes to sleep with problem in mind wakes with solution in hand".  (Or was that about something else?!)

 

Yep.

Working at Harvard in the mid 80s I was struggling for a couple days to improve the sensitivity of a test I was doing and getting nowhere. I retired to the bar, had a skinful and woke up at 3 in the morning with the answer. Promptly went into the lab to put the solution to the test (before morning came and I had forgotten) and...................... bingo. Happy man.

 

[blakeyboy]

On 4/11/2020 at 4:31 PM, mrbadexample said:

The only other one I know is "pack my bags with five dozen boxes of juicy liquorice". I'm sure there's a name for it - pan something I expect.

Yep...'Pangram'.

[Peckris 2]

A man told his son that he would give him $1000 if he could accomplish the following task. The father gave his son ten envelopes and a thousand dollars, all in one dollar bills. He told his son

"Place the money in the envelopes in such a manner that no matter what number of dollars I ask for, you can give me one or more of the envelopes, containing the exact amount I asked for without having to open any of the envelopes. If you can do this, you will keep the $1000."

When the father asked for a sum of money, the son was able to give him envelopes containing the exact amount of money asked for. How did the son distribute the money among the ten envelopes?

[Paddy]

Ah - I can see the answer to that one, but I will let others have a ponder rather than posting the solution straight away!

 

[Peckris 2]

2 minutes ago, Paddy said:

Ah - I can see the answer to that one, but I will let others have a ponder rather than posting the solution straight away!

Send me a PM with your answer!

[Sword]

How about:

1, 2, 4, 8,16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 489

[Bronze & Copper Collector]

1 hour ago, Sword said:

How about:

1, 2, 4, 8,16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 489

That's what I came up with....

Powers of 2.....

 

[jelida]

You guys are all so bright! I got as far as 1, 2.....then got stuck as my shoes have laces!

Jerry