mrimer
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A man is found dead, hung by a rope tied to a hook in the ceiling. His feet are a foot off the floor. The room is locked from the inside and there are no other ways out. There is nothing else inside the room. How did he die?

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Oneiromancer
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Wow, an oldie but goodie. I am pretty sure I know the answer to this one...so I got dibs if no one else gets it in the meantime.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Mattcrampy
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I know this one as well, although I always thought the floor was wet.

I'll fight you for it in giant robots, Oneiros.

Matt

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

DiMono
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How about this:

The room used to be filled with ice. The man stood on the ice, and as it melted he lowered. Eventually, the ice melted too low for his feet to reach, and he died. The ice continued to melt, and the water drained away.

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

DiMono
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I'm not going to post a new puzzle until this is confirmed or denied, mrimer, did I get it?

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Schik
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I talked to Mike about it right after he posted - yeah, that's the answer he was looking for.


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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
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Ooh, I saw this puzzle just a bit late or I would hae gotten it.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

mrimer
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Actually, he was standing on Pizza the Hut, who was starving and subsequently ate himself to *death*. You're up!

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Oneiromancer
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Hehe, Spaceballs rocks!

But mostly I just really like that new smiley. Don't hurt me!

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

DiMono
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Alright, new puzzle time. And I won't be checking this again until saturday night, so there's plenty of time to think about it.

At the top of a mountain is a cabin. There are no access roads, no tiremarks, no footprints, and several people dead inside. How did they die?

Note: the exact number of people is not relevant. It's less than fifty.

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

The_Red_Hawk
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Does a helicopter or an airplane come into the solution anywhere?

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

yes, a helicopter or airplain comes in to the solution somewhere

[Edited by DiMono on 12-20-2003 at 05:19 AM GMT: I see the typo, but choose to leave it because it's funny]

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Scott
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I was waiting for grammar nazis too.

The_Red_Hawk
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I've seen this before somewhere.

Is there any evidence of the death (i.e. are the people stabbed, crushed, etc.?)

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

they're mangled and obviously wounded

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

zex20913
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I believe that there are two solutions to this. One: An airplane crashed into the cabin, and everybody died. Two: An avalanche crahsed into the cabin, and everybody died. Since you said the flying object came into the solution, I will go with my #1 answer.

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Oneiromancer
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The_Red_Hawk wrote:
I've seen this before somewhere.

Then by the rules of this thread you shouldn't be guessing until 24 hours have passed. Please read the very first post.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Mattcrampy
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Wait, wait: Is it an airplane cabin?

I do believe the passenger part of the airplane is called a cabin.

So then the plane crashed into the mountain, and everybody died.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

The_Red_Hawk
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Oneiromancer wrote:

Then by the rules of this thread you shouldn't be guessing until 24 hours have passed. Please read the very first post.

But I don't remember what it is

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

It doesn't matter, Matt wins. Next!

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Mattcrampy
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Woo!

I'm tempted to just be lazy and go with one of Wesley's, but that's cheating.

So here's one:

During a WW2 bombing raid in the middle of the night, the German pilots, securely strapped in to their seats, were conducting a bombing raid on England. The English had turned their lights off so the pilots couldn't find them, as was the norm, but the Germans were confident they were over their target.

They flipped the switch to release the bomb. The automated hatch whirred open, and the clasp holding the bomb released. However, the bomb didn't fall.

Why?

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

Oneiromancer
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Ummm...I'm going to assume that this is a trick question and say because back in WW2 you couldn't just "flip a switch" and have the bomb drop automatically or something like that.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

eytanz
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The plane was flying upside-down, even though no-one realized it?

Arguments - that's why it was important that the pilots were strapped in their seats (since otherwise they'd fall out), and that all the lights in England were out (since otherwise, the Germans would be able to see the ground "above" them).

[Edited by eytanz on 12-21-2003 at 06:15 AM GMT]

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Mattcrampy
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Eytan got it. They were flying upside down.

I'm showing my ignorance here, but how did they manage to drop the bombs without a switch, Oneiros?

Matt

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

Oneiromancer
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Um...I don't know, I was offering a wild guess. I was trying to remember how they did it in Dr. Strangelove but all I could remember was the guy riding the bomb down. But I was pretty sure there was more to it than just flipping a switch...that they had lots of crewmen for a reason in those days. Also some bits of Catch-22 stick in my brain...and besides itching, they make me wonder if dropping bombs was that simple back then.

I would think, however, if the pilots were flying upside-down they would still feel gravity pulling them, even while strapped in, if for nothing else but their blood rushing to their heads. But I don't know much about that either.

Game on,



____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:
I would think, however, if the pilots were flying upside-down they would still feel gravity pulling them, even while strapped in, if for nothing else but their blood rushing to their heads. But I don't know much about that either.

Game on,

I think this puzzle is actually impossible - in fighter planes, it does happen that pilots without visual frames of referrence can lose their sense of up and down and fly upside-down - that has been the cause of several lethal accidents. But, as far as I know (and I'm not expert), this happens because: A - fighter planes go very, very fast, and the sensation of speed overcomes the sensation of gravity, and B - fighter planes are designed to be fully rotated when necessary. Neither of these is true of bombers, which are much slower, and larger and bulkier.

But, like many similar puzzles, this one is based on finding a "trick" explanation that explains everything and is consistent with the puzzle - it doesn't necessarily have to make full sense when you put it in a larger context. Take the puzzle (which I'm going to spoil) about the guy who goes up to the middle of a tall building in the elevator, and then has to walk the rest of the stairs up - because he's a dwarf, and can't reach the high buttons. But this is highly implausible. First, dwarves aren't that short - even a four-foot person could reach up an press a button five feet up - and have you ever seen an eleveator where the buttons are heigher than that? Dwarves are rare enough to not be taken into consideration, but children are quite common and also not very tall. And even if the unfortunately dwarf lived in such a weird building, he'd probably get some sort of pointing device to help him. So, the puzzle makes no sense; similarly with the plane puzzle - but it's not really about consistency, it's about whether you can think of the right trick or not. With the airplane puzzle, it happened to occur to me.

Anyway, after this semi-essay on puzzles - I still have to think of one, I'll post it here later when I do.

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Oneiromancer
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I agree; puzzles often put you into implausible situations. However, there are several puzzles that do rely on real-world knowledge and assumptions. For example, there's some puzzle (for kids mostly) about which of the items that an archaeologist is examining is a fake. The only one that is obvious is the one which has "100 B.C." etched on it, because of course at the time it was made they wouldn't have known they were "B.C." So there the whole point is to find the anachronism.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

eytanz
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Oh, sure. I wasn't talking about all the puzzles in the world - I'm only talking about so-called "lateral thinking" puzzles, where the point is that your original assumptions will throw you off-base, and not even all of those (the goldfish one given above is a good case, since it's perfectly plausible, but most people will treat things given human names as humans until given counter-evidence).

Anyway, here's my puzzle. It's a slightly modified form of a puzzle originated by Carl Ginnow in red.puzzles. Please solve it without googling. The puzzle itself is the bolded text only, all this introduction doesn't count.

This paragraph introduces a challenge. One secret rule governs its writing - find it out. Attempt to conform to the secret rule when replying. I will let posters know when they haven't met the rule's conditions, and when they have (even when they comply correctly, but don't know why). You should carefully examine this post, since this post does conform to the rule. Please ignore names and signatures and everything else unbolded, since they may violate the rule. When replying, try to not only mention the exact rule, but, to repeat what was said above, conform to the rule yourself. Please make all replies longer than two sentences, as less lines means less places where errors are possible.

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The_Red_Hawk
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Eytanz, this first part of my post is not trying to solve your puzzle.

Oneiromancer wrote:
I agree; puzzles often put you into implausible situations. However, there are several puzzles that do rely on real-world knowledge and assumptions. For example, there's some puzzle (for kids mostly) about which of the items that an archaeologist is examining is a fake. The only one that is obvious is the one which has "100 B.C." etched on it, because of course at the time it was made they wouldn't have known they were "B.C." So there the whole point is to find the anachronism.

I think that was a Slylock Fox mystery?


Below is my attempt for a post that conforms. I'll just start out with a paragraph to see if it works before I try guessing.


It was a beautiful day outside yesterday. The sun was shining down on Santa and his reindeer. They were preparing for the long journey around the world on Christmas Eve, and presents still had to be wrapped.

[End attempt]

That was just the first thing I thought about. If the post doesn't conform, will you say how?

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

I just realized this.....

Your sentences all begin with pronouns or verbs. Is this part of the puzzle?

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....