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 Forum index » Diversions » TimeWasters
A LITTLE TIMEWASTER SET
Moderators: Giskard, ndemeter, ScarpeGrosse
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

I've got one ready, but will defer till later.
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:04 pm
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la!uep
Boot


Joined: 26 Mar 2009
Posts: 69

Rogi Ocnorb wrote:
I've got one ready, but will defer till later.

Same here... I'll get in line. Twisted Evil

ETA, where did six go?

PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 6:47 pm
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retsbob999
Boot

Joined: 09 Jul 2008
Posts: 64
Location: Rock Hill, SC

OK, here's a Quickie
Shouldn't take too long

Once upon a time, and old lady went to sell her vast quantity of eggs at the local market.

When asked how many she had, she replied:

Son, I can't count past 100 but I know that.

If you divide the number of eggs by 2 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 3 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 4 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 5 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 6 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 7 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 8 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 9 there will be one egg left.
If you divide the number of eggs by 10 there will be one egg left.

Finally. If you divide the Number of eggs by 11 there will be NO EGGS left!

How many eggs did the old lady have?
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 9:35 pm
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

A LOT!

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
25,201 by my count.

ETA:
The Lowest Common Multiple (LCM) for 2 to 10 is 2,520
So, the total eggs would need to be (n*LCM)+1
The smallest value for (n*LCM)+1 that can be divided by 11 is ten times the LCM (plus one), or 25,201

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 10:44 pm
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la!uep
Boot


Joined: 26 Mar 2009
Posts: 69

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
5*7*8*9*10 + 1 = 25201 is the first one
5*7*8*9*21 + 1 = 52921 is the second one
5*7*8*9*32 + 1 = 80641 is the third one

So in general, for any k integer any number of the form:
(11*k-1)*5*7*8*9 + 1 will satisfy those conditions.

I know all numbers of the form n*5*7*8*9 + 1 satisfy the first 9 conditions, but I'm stuck in trying to prove why choosing n=11*k-1 results in a multiple of 11.

ETA aaah Rogi you beat me! Laughing and you got proof too? Can you explain why "The smallest value for (n*LCM)+1 that can be divided by 11 is ten times the LCM (plus one)" holds? Thanks, I spent the last half an hour recking my brain about it. It's probably something stupid I'm missing.

PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:41 pm
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

Frankly, No. I can't.
When I got to that point, I took the easy road and just started looking for multiples of 2520, manually, believing that it couldn't be more than eleven attempts.

Okay, Here's a new one:
************************************

Quote:
Dear Diary,

Hard to believe it's been a whole year since that awful incident at the 2007 Heroes and Villains New Years Eve Ball.
That pompous Holmes and his "nobody can hide from me." challenge.
A whole year of no contact. My invisibility shield and 10-mile dead-zone against his... Who knows what.
Well, almost a year. I was sure I had won.
And then the message comes via radiotelegraph on the last damn day:

Quote:
Dear Moriarty,

You should, by now, realize that I have located your island sanctuary and pointed out quite clearly where it is that you plan your nefarious acts.
Even someone as blind as you should be able to see the message I've left.

I shall expect you to make good on our wager when next we meet.
As is my wont, I'd prefer you to round down to the nearest million for all accounts so as to leave you with a little something.
Will you be attending the annual ball, this evening?

Yours,
Holmes
12:00 hours, UTC 12/31/1928


Oh, how I hate the man!
I thought I was in the clear and had proven my superior intellect. Now I feel like I've missed something.
Checking the radio wave reflection contact logs for the year, recorded are only random contacts out to the 40 mile limit of the system and nothing at all within the dead zone.
All contact durations were under sixty seconds as evidenced by the lack of date/time/location data for loss of contact.
Underwater sound reflection logs are completely devoid of any contact data.

Maybe he's pulling my leg. But if he's not, this could be a little embarrassing.

************************************
ETA2:
I changed the year on everything to make it more believable.
It doesn't affect the solve or method.
1928_RWR_Contacts_Log.txt
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txt

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Filename  1928_RWR_Contacts_Log.txt 
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:00 am
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sixsidedsquare
Unfettered

Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 409
Location: 60E

la!uep wrote:
ETA, where did six go?


Off for Easter with the family. I've got time to peek at this thread, but not really time for any in depth puzzling.

PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:25 am
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la!uep
Boot


Joined: 26 Mar 2009
Posts: 69

Six, hope you're enjoying your vacation. Happy Easter!

Rogi, If Holmes drew a picture or wrote out something through his contacts, all I'm seeing is a field of random dots, just like Moriarty said. I can't identify any clear shape or letter.

Any further hints? Maybe I'm even blinder than Moriarty.

ETA: N is to the right, so maybe tilt your head, sorry. So there's like another 10-mile wide hole to the west... Question



PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:12 am
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

Remember Holmes' penchant for rounding down.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:50 pm
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la!uep
Boot


Joined: 26 Mar 2009
Posts: 69

I've got nothing. I've been rounding down everything in sight to no avail. What would be the relevance of the azimuth data, or even the precise timestamps we have (other than to order the whole message)? Sad

PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:41 pm
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

Did you notice any pattern when you rounded down the azimuth data?
As for the dates and times. When I changed the year, I said it would have no bearing on the puzzle. I can say the same thing for the times.
What utility did you use to do your graph? Does it let you add grid lines?
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:53 am
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la!uep
Boot


Joined: 26 Mar 2009
Posts: 69

When Holmes says "round down," I interpret that as truncate ("leave you with a little something" wouldn't be guaranteed with normal rounding). The range value space goes to 30 possible values (10 to 39 miles), which got me thinking letters plus some punctuation. But looking at the frequencies makes me think that's not it.

When truncating azimuth to whole degrees the change (visually) is minimal. Maybe rounding down to like 5 or 10 or 15 degree multiples? I tried those and couldn't see anything either.

I'm using Microsoft Excel. Sure, I can put grid lines, but if I need them along the azimuth-range dimensions I need to "unwrap" the chart from a doughnut shape into a rectangle strip. So I'm doing it both ways. I'm adding lines every 5 or 10 miles (in both charts), and every 15 degrees of azimuth (in the unwrapped strip). Still no pattern.

I must be doing something wrong, but there's so much manipulation going on already that I'm not too fond of testing all variations exhaustively.

Someone else please take it from here, this is too much like my day job (time-based data trend analysis). Mad

PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 5:43 am
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

Okay.
I'll just specify the best of what you've already tried
Truncate azimuth to full degrees.
Truncate range to 10 miles (Just like the ticks in your first graph).
Order by azimuth
Unwrap the chart.

ETA: Or, don't truncate anything and create zones of 1 degree by 10 miles using lines and the method should become apparent.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 1:35 pm
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la!uep
Boot


Joined: 26 Mar 2009
Posts: 69

Ahh, now that was much more fun. But how was Moriarty supposed to know about the 10-mile zones? And even knowing that tip, without actually truncating the data and seeing it unwrapped it would be impossible to make out the pattern, blind or not. Cool

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
So, here's an image where the unwrapped strip is arbitrarily broken in 6 sections of 60 degrees each. From that you use one of these to get:

seventyfivedegreesei
ghtcinutesfoursecond
snorthlatitudebyeigh
s.ysevendegteesfiftyo
ne?inutesf.iftyseve?s
ea.ondswestlongitude

(arbitrary line breaks correspond to the 6 sections in my image)

Which, after some minor fixes, leads here.

Looks pretty damn cold there... Shocked Things must be really hard for Moriarty... every villain that respects himself buys in the Caribbean. Just ask that good old bloke, Sir Stanford. Very Happy



ETA: Ok, ok. I got two ready, rescued and updated from the two-year-old archive after seeing some of the details on that hideous thing that Rogi linked me to, which stood unsolved for 3 years until grumpyboy just couldn't bear it anymore.

So, which should it be, the silly song and crazy map, or the funky letter arithmetic? Twisted Evil

PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 5:28 pm
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Rogi Ocnorb
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 4266
Location: Where the cheese is free.

Yeah. Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island on Earth.

So, I probably threw that one together a little too hurriedly.
I was going to do it without any decimal digits, but it seemed too easy.
And having a 5 mile max range just didn't seem right. Retrospectively, I guess I should have stuck with one mile increments, though.

When you posted that first chart, I thought, "He's done it again. Just add the lines and see where things fall.". Dots would have appeared in "random" areas within squares, but there would have been only one dot per square. I was glad to see that you had discounted the date/time data as irrelevant.

Sorry for the few that ended up in the wrong quadrant. I was sure I'd set all the Random() fields (dates, times, "ones digit" miles and fractional miles/degrees) to not affect the base values.

I always wanted to do one of these with an actual picture, but got in a rush and decided on just going Braille.

Don't know about everybody else, but I'm feeling a little silly. Wink

ETA: Got to looking at my reply and realized that I mentioned it, but never really answered daniel's question about WHY I ended up going with the 10-mile schema (an unfortunate side-effect of MY day job).

Basically, I was thinking the "blind man" clue would get better mileage and that, once the Braille path was chosen, the necessary adjustments would be made to make the data fit.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 6:56 pm
Last edited by Rogi Ocnorb on Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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