Hummings of a Happy Hurkle

You didn’t really think one puzzle was the end of it, did you?

Fred and Norma held a dinner party and invited 4 other couples. As people arrived, Fred noticed that people who knew each other hugged or kissed, but if they were strangers they just shook hands. After all the arrivals and all the introductions, Fred asked everyone including Norma how many hands they had shaken. To his surprise he got 9 different answers.

How many of the dinner guests were strangers to Norma?

Answer over the fold (more…)

Time for another puzzle, to get the juices going again!

Instructions:

1. Deal out 2 full packs of cards in one long row, all face down (or in circles or loops or whatever, as long as you can count along them!).
2. Starting with the first card, turn over every card.
3. Starting with the second card, turn over every second card.
4. Starting with the third card, turn over every third card.
5. Starting with the fourth card, turn over every fourth card.
6. And so on, until every card has been used as a starting point.

Question: how many cards are now face up?
Bonus: what will be the effect of including the jokers?

Solution over the fold

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An oldie but a goodie, with a few new additions.

• SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows, and you give one to your neighbour.
• COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.
• FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.
• NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.
• BUREAUCRATISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, then throws the milk away…
• TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
• SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
• AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.
• ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.
• THE ANDERSEN MODEL: You have two cows. You shred them.
• A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
• A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.
• A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
• AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are. You decide to have lunch.
• A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
• A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.
• A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
• AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.
• A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.
• IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy….
• WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.
• AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A mathematician goes into a restaurant and is seated at a square table, which he notices is unstable. The table has four legs evenly spaced, but although the floor is smooth he can see it is quite uneven. As a result one leg of the table does not quite reach the floor.

The waiter offers to wedge a piece of folded paper under the table leg, but the mathematician quickly analyses the problem and comes up with a better solution. Without getting up from his chair, he quickly moves the table so that it is now stable. Can you find how he did it?

The puzzle is to prove that there is a way to move the table to a nearby location so that all 4 legs rest evenly on the floor, and to find a simple method to do so.

You can assume that there are no holes, obstructions or other artificial restrictions. The solution should be perfectly practical under normal conditions, and may actually turn out to be rather useful!

Solution
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Why is there something and not nothing? I know the answer, because Jesus and Mo told me.

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2008/08/01/silly/

Love those guys!

To a mathematical Hurkle, that’s what 22/7 suggests. Enjoy!

A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead show up for the same job interview. They fill out their forms and wait to be called in. The brunette goes first. After discussing her qualifications, the interviewer decides to ask her last question:
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Two Irishmen walk into a pet shop in Dingle, they walk over to the bird section and Gerry says to Paddy, ‘Dat’s dem.’

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Hopefully some of you know what Vaxen are (or were).

This link is to an account of an entertaining clash of computer cultures, over 20 years ago. I enjoyed it. I assure you, the culture is alive and well today.

Another great Web comic.

http://www.farleftside.com/2008/5-16-08.html