WxMurray

Murray entered his quarters after his shift. As he took off his uniform jacket he said, “Computer: open personal log and begin recording.”

Personal log, stardate 0503.21

We received new orders today. Instead of heading to on Bolaris as originally planned, we are now on our way to Starbase 234 near the Romulan Neutral Zone…well, the former Romulan Neutral Zone. This could be quite a shakedown she’s going to get.

Today I took it upon myself to inspect the auxiliary engineering rooms. Everything seems in working order. In case we ever go into multi-vector assault mode, I’ll most likely be in charge of one of these. It was an intriguing site, though. The upper engine room’s warp core is horizontal, like you would find on early starships – the NX class, for instance: Columbia and Enterprise were the first two. The core in the second engine room is even more intriguing. The core is actually split into two components with the matter and antimatter both flowing down to the M/ARA. I can't wait to see them working.

Murray went to the replicator and ordered a large glass of grape juice and drank half of it.

I got a letter from Marissa today. The USS Luther is headed for the Antares system in the Bajor sector for the next round of Marine training and testing. The crew will be instructed in the lasted known methods of Romulan combat and tested on current abilities. It sounds grueling. I guess I got off the Luther at the right time. Still, having served aboard the ship for the past several years I have full confidence in her crew and command staff.

“Computer: end log.”

Murray sat on his sofa for a few minutes. Tomorrow he wanted to check out the impulse engines and weapons systems of the three hulls. He wanted to be ready for everything. Besides, what’s the fun of having a Prometheus class starship if she isn’t in top shape?

A few weeks ago, my vacuum broke. This is a conventional vacuum cleaner -- the kind that's on wheels, with the hose that plugs in on one end. The vacuum looks like a torpedo.

Before I threw it out, however, I decided I'd take it apart to see if I could fix it. I surprised myself and found the problem. It was a broken wire.

While I'm fixing it, I notice a huge chunk of iron attached to the base of the vacuum. It looks like it weighs about two pounds.

I remembered two years ago when I took a stereo component apart. I noticed that it also had a huge chunk of iron in there -- so that you wouldn't think it was a big empty box with 65 cents' worth of components

I thought, Do I want my wife dragging around this vacuum cleaner that's two pounds heavier? Of course not. I'll just throw this thing out. So I pry off the piece of iron and I put the vacuum back together.

A while later, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, smugly chewing on an apple. When my wife comes in and goes to vacuum, something odd happens. The question is: what happened to the vacuum when she turned it on?

I guess this one was a bit easier than the last. That's right. In most parts of the US, Daylight Saving Time (the proper term is "Saving", not "Savings") begins at 2:00 AM on the first Sunday of April. At this point the time jumps ahead an hour to 3:00 AM. Technically, this hour doesn't even exist, hence the 23 hour day. So this student could not have found any local accidents for this hour. However, there are some parts of the US that do not observe Daylight Saving Time. With so few locales that do not observe DST, it stands to reason that there would be some accidents in these areas in this hour.

February 29th because it happens only once every four years therefore has 1/4 the chance of accidents as any other day in the year.

That's a good guess, but is incorrect because it occurs once every four years. My guess would also be that there have been accidents on Leap Day in the past. What I am looking for occurrs every year.

A graduate student worked at one of the institutions of higher learning in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and wrote his dissertation on the relationship between uncontrollable outside forces and automobile accidents. He collected thousands and thousands of accident reports from the State of Massachusetts and correlated the time of the accident with other factors, like temperature, road conditions, automobile size, age of the driver, alcohol usage, speed limits, and whether the accident victim was listening the radio.

After thousands of hours of data input and hours of computer grinding, he discovered an amazing statistic. He found the absolute safest time of year to drive an automobile on a public highway.

It was so safe, in fact, that not one single accident had occurred.

However, still not able to believe his own conclusions, he returned to collecting more accident reports -- this time nationwide. Nationwide, he found that there had been statistically less than 2% of the number of accidents in any other time frame.

The question is: when was the safest time of the year to drive on a public highway and why?

Well, since no one seems to be able to get it, here's the answer.

The hint was the two-door coupe, because when he looks into the car after it arrives, it's empty. Don't forget, he wakes up, the car is there, but it's empty. He notices that the seat back is pushed forward. It's a two-door car. The third person in the car was in the back seat and got out. So the kahuna was riding up front, of course, and the other bodyguard was in the back seat. And when the three of them got out, the seat back was pushed forward, and the detective said, "Now I know the big boss is in the building."

The detective went undercover as one of the bodyguards?

Nope. That isn't in the story. Everything you need is there.

Does this require knowledge of the construction of particular car types? ::sneaking suspicion, but knowledge of cars limited to how to drive them and fix common problems long enough to reach service stations::

Everything you need to know is in the story.

I'll post the answer tomorrow at some point if no one gets it.

Well, there goes my pick. Good thing I don't care about basketball.

the bodyguards are standing outside of the car?

No, the body guards would be with him. He takes them everywhere, including the bathroom (although they might stand just outside the door for that). Hint: read the story carefully. Everything you need is there, plus a little thinking.

well if the boss is BIG would he weigh the car down?

By "big boss" I mean "top guy", not "heavy".

A detective is on a stakeout, watching a warehouse where he knows a bunch of crooks meet. But he wants to catch the boss.

He's watching this warehouse at night from a second-floor window over a nearby building. Crooks come and go all night, but he waits until the boss shows up to move in. Thing is, he doesn't know what the boss looks like.

All he knows is that the boss always travels with two bodyguards and that he'll be in a white car. Eventually a white two-door coupe pulls up. There are only two men in the car, and they get out of the car and go into the building. The detective waits. While waiting, he nods off for a few minutes.

When he wakes up the coupe is gone. He watches another half-hour and falls asleep again. When he finally wakes up, the same white coupe is back.

Using his binoculars, he looks into the car. He sees that the car is empty, but he knows that the boss is inside. He calls his back up, and the joint is busted.

They catch the big boss.

The question is: How did the detective know the boss was inside?

Well, I guess I'll answer my question, since no one else seems to have the answer. The other thing is an angle. So if I draw a 48 degree angle and look at it through the magnifying glass, it is still 48 degrees.

It was the magnifying glass.

 

So ... after reading five pages of these things I still can't find the answer to the "3 integers between 0 and 4 question".

 

Could someone repeat the answer?

No. Assume that you looked at the second thing the magnifying glass, and that the second thing is placed there in a manner like the first.

well we all know that on a 63 dart the wheel on the right side of the car have threads oppisite of those on the left so you couln't even screww in a nut from the those two tire

Very good.

I took a sheet plain white paper. No lines on it or anything, just a blank sheet of paper. Like eight-and-a-half by eleven. And, using a fountain pen with black ink I wrote my signature on the paper. Anywhere on the paper. It really didn't matter. I also put something else on the paper. Both were plainly visible. When I looked at my signature through the magnifying glass that I had, I was not at all surprised to find that it was enlarged. But when I looked at the other thing that was on the paper, it wasn't enlarged. What was the second thing?

Don't encourage him too much. You might get what you wish for. Congrats, N'Dak.

Isn't that what GMing is about? Killing cadets? Oh, and some stuff about leading sims or some other nonsense, too. ;)

Congrats, NDak. Go kill some cadets.

UPDATE 17 March 2005: added promotion. I just had to update this days before the promotion... ;)

Scented Bowling Balls Now Available

 

MILWAUKEE -- Odors associated with bowling traditionally include smelly feet, cigarette smoke and beer. But what about grape, amaretto and cherry?

 

Bowling balls already come in almost every conceivable color. Now, they're available in scents, too.

 

One bowling ball manufacturer -- Storm Products Incorporated -- is putting fruit and other popular scents into its mid- to high-end bowling balls, resulting in a steady increase in sales.

 

And that makes a lot of sense to four-time Professional Bowlers Association champ Ryan Shafer. He says he may have won a match because an opponent was distracted by his black licorice-scented ball.

 

Storm Products has a range of scents for its upper-end bowling balls. Bowlers can choose from cinnamon, orange, amaretto and cherry, among others.

 

Storm Products' first scented balls -- green apple and citrus -- came out in the spring of 2000. Since then, the company has produced about 40 scents.

 

But smelling good at the lanes doesn't come cheap. Storm's scented bowling balls cost between $150 and $250.

And, yes, Cougar, this topic is two more message boards. ;)

2

Yes, 2, and from there just keep adding 128; so 130, 258, 386, 514, etc., also work.

Many moons ago, when Tommy's son Alex was learning how to drive, Tommy thought he'd take him out in his '63 Dart and show him the rules of the road.

Alex was driving along, doing rather well, when they hear an unfamiliar noise. Tommy realized after a minute or so that the right rear tire had gone flat.

Realizing this was yet another fine opportunity to teach, Tommy asked Alex to pull off onto the shoulder. With the semis whizzing by at 70 miles per hour, Tommy hid in the bushes and told Alex from 100 yards away, "Take the jack out of the truck."

Alex jacked up the car, loosened the wheel nuts, and very carefully put them in the hub cap. But when he went to retrieve the spare tire, he inadvertently stepped on the hub cap and sent all but one of the wheel nuts cascading down the nearby hillside, never to be seen again. Out of the five wheel nuts, he managed to save one.

After administering an appropriate number of dope slaps, Tommy said, "We're done for!"

Suddenly, Alex said, "Wait a minute! Can you have four wheel nuts on every wheel instead of five?" Tommy said, "Yes, of course we can -- at least until we get back to town." To which Alex replied, "Well then, let's take one nut off of each of the other wheels, leaving four on each wheel, and we'll have four for the tire we're changing."

Three hours later, they're still waiting for help. Why couldn't they do what Alex suggested?

A maharajah owned a mango tree that had very sweet, abundant fruit. People would come from miles around to pick the fruit. So the maharajah decided to protect the tree by erecting a series of seven concentric fences around it.

Each fence had a gate with a guard. To get to the tree a person would have had to pass through seven gates and pass seven guards.

One day, a man approached the guard at the first gate and said, "If you let me pass, when I come back I'll bring you some mangoes. I will give you half of the mangoes I have, but you must give me one back." For example, if he brings back 10 mangoes, he'll give five to the guard and the guard will give one back. The guard let the man in through the gate, and the man proceeded to make the same deal with the other six guards.

The question is: How many mangoes did the man have to get to pass back through the seven gates, giving half to each guard and the guard giving one back? Assume no splitting, partials, etc; use whole mangoes.

Easy enough; the day of the week any day falls on moves forward one day each year, except in leap years, when it jumps two. So, twenty-eight years ago... is... a Tuesday? ::grabs paper and pencil:: In any event, not a Sunday. ;-)

 

Oh, and Dumbass -- Wrong. LoAmi... Novel, but wrong. (I can explain why, but not without giving away the solution.)

Close. Except in the event of non-leap-year centuries, a date falls on the exact same day of the week every 28 years. The day was a Wednesday. The woman said that they were married on a Sunday. But twenty-eight years prior should've been a Wednesday, not a Sunday.

3 forums now.......

And I posted them all at the same time. I opened the "Add new poll" in all three, typed it up in all three, and hit "add new poll" or whatever on all three. The timestamps should have the exact same time on all three.

There's a fancy French restaurant cafe called Café Pretension. They had started a new promotion. On their anniversary, a married couple purchasing an entrée at full price would get the second entrée free. The promotion turned out to be a huge success.

Of course, the restaurant required diners to bring some proof of the date of their anniversary to receive the discount.

One Wednesday night a waiter came to Francois, the owner, and said, "Boss, that couple over there is claiming that today is their anniversary, but they don't have any proof."

Francois went over and introduced himself and engaged in a little tete-a-tete with them. Francois asked the woman, "Tell me a little bit about your wedding day."

She said, "It was a beautiful Sunday morning, the birds were chirping as I opened my window to prepare to get ready for my wedding. I saw the flowers in bloom. It was spectacular." She goes on to explain to Francois that today was their 28th wedding anniversary.

Francois says, "How charming! But, unfortunately, you do not qualify. I don't believe that today is your 28th wedding anniversary. In fact," he says, "You're a bold face liar!" And he slaps her across the face, spilling her vichyssoise onto her lap.

How did Francois know that today was not their wedding anniversary?