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riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> Who's who?
(Message started by: Carl_Cox on Oct 4th, 2002, 6:21pm)

Title: Who's who?
Post by Carl_Cox on Oct 4th, 2002, 6:21pm
As I've mentioned in other posts, I'm interested in finding out who's participating in this site, and what they get out of this site.  Any and all details are welcome.

So, for starters, I'm Carl Cox, a CSMS student at Georgia Tech.  I found this site several months ago (no, not from the slashdot site) when a friend of mind asked me the infamous 100 prisoner riddle.  I took a day, got a (not great) answer, took another day, got the better answer (which appears to be the best answer so far).  Then I asked him where he found it.  He directed me to this site, and I've been off and on again since.  

Before this, I collected classic riddles.  My sophomore year, I would stick a riddle on my door, titled "Riddle of the Day"  People would write their answers and slide the paper under my door; the first person with the right answer got credit on the next Riddle of the Day.  It became quite a thing in the hall; people were amazingly competitive.  Some people, having won, would ask for the prize.  This lead to the creating of the Riddle Rules, which you can read at
www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte711e/riddles
People told me they liked the riddle rules, so you guys might also.

Anyhow, all that ended when I moved from the hall, but I kept the riddles and created a "Random Riddle Generator" on my home page (which, unfortunalty, isn't available right now, though I can get you the riddles if you're interested).

More recently, I have enrolled in a course entitiled Online Communities, in which we discuss design decisions of online communities, and how they effect the community itself.  We talked about LamdaMOO, MediaMOO, Habitat (on the ol' commodore 64), ebay, IRC, ICQ, chatrooms, Ultima Online, etc. etc. etc.  For a midterm project, we are required to participate in an online community, and I thought of this one.  I emailed the talented Wu about it, and he was excited, and so I've been interacting since.  I might add that I've been thoroughly enjoying the problem solving process, too.  But it occured to me that noone seems to know much about each other.  And I want to know.

SOOO, if you're interested, follow up to this post with your story!  I'm all ears!  Or fingers, since we're online.

carl

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Misha Kruk on Oct 17th, 2002, 1:28pm
Male
23y.o.
Software Engineer
Part time grad student at Brandeis University (yes, computer science).
Found the site through Slashdot
Wasted two workdays on it and than stopped. Occasionally come back, usually to post a puzzle, but occasionally to try solving one or two.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Carl_Cox on Oct 17th, 2002, 7:40pm
I'm hurt, and I'm sure Misha is, too! ;)  Besides, my profile destintly says I'm 24 (happy birthday, me! ;D) and that I go to Ga. Tech.

Glad to meet you, Pietro!  

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by stillflame on Oct 19th, 2002, 9:24am
Alrighty.

My name is Martin Chase, i'm a journeyman programmer in my last year of undergraduate college studying math.  On my weekends i work towards building a multi user game (http://www.FaerieMUD.org).  On my weekdays i work on starting up a business (http://www.perlreason.com).  Every other spare productive cycle goes into linguistics work (http://dev.faeriemud.org/~stillflame/linkparse.html), which actually has application to all three of the previously mentioned aspects of my time expenditures.

I found this site when it was slashdotted, then rediscovered it again recently.  I was trying to come up with logos/slogans/catch phrases/&c. for my company, and, to compliment the name, was looking for reasoning puzzles.  I really enjoy working on these riddles, both as mental strength and flexibility training and as a social activity with my coworkers, friends and family.  This is certainly the largest repository of these sorts of things i have ever seen before.

So one question: outside of alzheimer's or any other memory related disease, what will i do once i'm really old and need mental exercise, but have already exhausted this source?  Or put another way, where do wu and everyone else who has read through and answered most to all of these riddles go on a daily basis for comparable challenges?

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rugga on Oct 19th, 2002, 11:04am
Hi all,
 My real name is Mark Land.  I'm 30-ish years old.  My background is in computer science (especially genetic algorithms and AI), and I've always had an interest in math, game theory and other fun topics.  I've always loved puzzles and games of various types -- I have a good collection of Rubik's cube-type puzzles and have been getting Games magazine almost continuously since I was a kid (anyone else have 20 year old issues lying around?).
 I love Pietro's phrase "preoccupying lack of interest for the practical applications of any kind of science".  For me also the search for "truth and beauty" is a prime motivator.  (Though I've had to suppress that sentiment somewhat for the time being while I pay the bills :-/  I guess it's not so bad to actually see something useful spring from my efforts.)
 Speaking of which, I'm currently working at a mid-sized software/data company founded by one of my professors a few years back (Parity Computing: check us out www.paritycomputing.com).  I mostly do software project management these days though I still get a chance to do some coding.
 I found this site from slashdot and I've been visiting regularly since then.  I really enjoy the site, and actually it's the only on-line community I've ever felt motivated to post to.  Thanks William Wu for putting it together and maintaining it (also just noticed that I recently became a junior member, thanks again!).

- Mark

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by william wu on Oct 20th, 2002, 2:20am
Great idea for a thread Carl! I've wanted to know more about our fellow riddlers for quite some time now. I think we're an unusual community, because most people actually don't like puzzles. We should take advantage of this opportunity to meet other people who share this cultivated [and perhaps somewhat masochistic?] interest. I'd really like to see more discussion about things besides riddles, and I'm surprised there haven't been any threads like this one until now.

My name is William Wu, and I'm the site administrator. I'm 19, currently a senior at UC Berkeley studying electrical engineering and computer science. My interests are in DSP (EE side) and algorithms (CS side); both fields share the characteristics of being grounded in mathematics and involving clever algorithms. Currently I'm going through pre-graduation chaos, trying to choose between these two fields for graduate school applications. In an ideal immediate future, I see myself researching a simple puzzle which hides surprising implications.

I've actually not always been a riddle freak; in fact it wasn't until the fall of 2001 that I got really hooked on riddles, thanks to some sadistic friends who like to stump me. I started with such problems as Glass Half Full, Single File Hat Execution, Birthday Twins, Differentiation Disaster. All of these problems asked me to pull off something seemingly impossible; these are my favorite kinds of problems. They strongly contradicted my intuitions, and thus were naturally intriguing. I'd hack these problems for a long time, and eventually have epiphanies that frankly made me very happy. Everything was doomed at first, but then I pulled a MacGyver and saved the world! I discovered that I really enjoyed this feeling of mastery, this wave of clarity that you can experience after solving a nonintuitive riddle by yourself. I'd reflect on the solutions and muse over how marvelously clever they were. And there was always a take-home message, a new trick or mathematical lesson to be learned. To think that so much drama and knowledge could be encapsulated in a few sentences!

Collecting riddles obsessively was the logical next step. By the spring of 2002, I had accumulated a lot of cool problems in my head, and I decided to write them down lest I forget them. This site was the result. It's been ridiculously time-consuming, but the results have been well worth it. By putting it all online, I've had the pleasure of torturing many friends. After slashdot, the number of riddles has doubled since thanks to visitor contributions. But especially rewarding has been all the activity on this forum. What I appreciate most is learning from all of you about different ways to think about problems. I can browse volumes of analysis on problems I thought I had thoroughly solved, and end up reading many ideas I probably never would have thought of.

Well that's it for now. You can check out my homepage http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu for more about me. Other strong interests of mine include Chinese etymology, psychology, and controversial world history; slick online material for all of these things can be accessed from the main page. Glad to meet all of you!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by william wu on Oct 20th, 2002, 3:03am

on 10/19/02 at 09:24:19, stillflame wrote:
So one question: outside of alzheimer's or any other memory related disease, what will i do once i'm really old and need mental exercise, but have already exhausted this source?  Or put another way, where do wu and everyone else who has read through and answered most to all of these riddles go on a daily basis for comparable challenges?


I think I get challenged pretty well on a daily basis at school; actually, usually by the time I get home after crunching through problem sets, my mind is way too tired to think about new riddles posted on this site :P I don't find most university coursework challenging in the same manner that these puzzles are, but mathematical studies can give comparable challenges -- particularly studies related to combinatorics and probability. I happen to be taking courses on exactly those topics this semester, and occasionally I encounter some good riddles in these courses.

The issue of problem exhaustion is also of my concern; essentially I'm going through the coupon collector problem. So far I've been pretty consistent at adding a new handful of problems every week. I'd like to say that you'd never have to worry about exhausting this source, because there will always be new problems. However, it gets exponentially more difficult to find clever problems I haven't encountered already, and it's not clear to me how long I can keep this up. I might be sucking up clever problems faster than the world can produce them. Perhaps creating good riddles is harder than solving them?  In the meantime though, stick around, because there's still lots of problems to be discovered and solved!

Returning to your original question, here are some other sources of mental exercise: Chess, Go, Word Racer on games.Yahoo.com, topcoder.com, and the card game "Set".  Fantastic pattern recognition game, you just have to play it:

http://www.reed.edu/~mcphailb/applets/set/

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Carl_Cox on Oct 21st, 2002, 6:44pm

on 10/19/02 at 09:24:19, stillflame wrote:
So one question: outside of alzheimer's or any other memory related disease, what will i do once i'm really old and need mental exercise, but have already exhausted this source?  Or put another way, where do wu and everyone else who has read through and answered most to all of these riddles go on a daily basis for comparable challenges?

Most of my challenges (when I'm not working on riddles...!) come from personal projects.  I'm interested in woodworking; I come up with a programming project that I'm interested in explorting roughly once a month; I'm involved in theatre; I'm a full time master's student with a TAship.  Another challenge is finding time for everything!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by James Fingas on Oct 24th, 2002, 2:22pm
I'm male, from (near) the small town of Cobourg, Ontario. I'm 22, and I recently graduated from the University of Toronto, with a degree in Applied Science.

The program I took is "Engineering Science", a relatively masochistic engineering program with extra math and more breadth, and I specialized in Electrical Engineering. My engineering interests are programming and algorithms, power electronics, systems and control, and a little bit of DSP (but I only took one course :(). I like building things, especially soldering things. Check out the U of T Engineering Science Design projects at http://www.aerospace.utoronto.ca/design/. I'm in there, under the 0T2s, group 15. My picture is the second one from the bottom, holding all my little creations, and Ian is in the bottom picture. You know, he'd probably like this site ... The red patches on our robots are pieces of "My Fantastic BrushTM".

I was involved in the University of Toronto Bluesky Solar Racing project. Check them out at http://www.blueskysolar.utoronto.ca/. I designed and modeled the aerobody (outside shape) of the car. I could have gone to Australia to participate in the race, but I cared more about my finals ... usually I'm not so responsible!

I have always loved riddles, but the books you get are of poor quality (especially the MENSA ones), and therefore, my love of riddles was never satisfied ... until now! I poopoo on you all who don't like practical things--the beauty of the real world hides behind a seemingly random and brute-force face. Sometimes I think I spend too long on these riddles, but I justify it by thinking about how it will improve my reasoning skills.

I recently bought a house with my wife Debbie, and we live near Rice Lake (about 20 minutes from Cobourg). I guess that makes me "all settled", which is a nice way to be.

I always get ideas of things I want to build or program, but I never get around to them. Maybe someday I'll tell you what my ideas are (or at least the ones that could never make any money!)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by amitpatil007 on Oct 25th, 2002, 12:01am
hi,my name is amit.i am a student of MIT(india).i found this site through google search engine.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by James Fingas on Oct 25th, 2002, 11:13am
I warned you, so here is one of my inventions.

During one summer of university, I worked at a software company, whose product is a specialized IDE (integrated development environment, ala Visual C++). They had recently been bought out by a major firm in the area of their specialty, and therefore they were making big improvements to their product. For the first part of the summer, I worked on their editor. Can you guess what data structure they used to store the information in the document that a user typed in? A list. (a horrible list they wrote themselves ... cringe!). Because lists have slow random access, they kept a pointer to the last place accessed in the list, since you usually work in only a small area of the data at a time.

I thought to myself: what would be a better data structure for a text editor? A list has slow random access (Which is sometimes used, in an IDE anyways), and a vector has slow insertions (very problematic for an editor!). Is there a data structure which has fast random access and fast insertions?

The answer seems to be no. I couldn't find any standard template class which did this. However, that is not to say that it's impossible to have a tradeoff between a list and a vector. Thus, the idea of the "vectree" was born. Stop me now if something like this already exists...

The idea is to have a tree structure that, instead of storing data in sorted order, stores data like a vector (ie. when you delete things, the indexes of all subsequent data items change). This would allow indexing in O( log n ) and insertion in O( log n ), possibly a good balance between the properties of a list and of a vector, because neither operation is penalized excessively. Of course, this also requires that the tree remain balanced (because insertions will tend to unbalance a tree), but happily my solution led to a very beautiful balancing function.

It's possible that the balancing method was my biggest achievement, because, as you may know, none of 2-3 balancing, red-black balancing or KVL balancing allow fine control over exactly how balanced your tree is, and they can cause "thrashing", where each subsequent insertion causes a new imbalance. My balancing method allows you to know exactly how balanced the tree is, and to (easily) correct the tree to be exactly as balanced as you want it to be. If you detect an imbalance at one threshold, then correct the imbalance to a tighter threshold, then you can control thrashing to any degree you want to. It also fits in about 15 lines of code ;D

I got partway through writing the class in C++ using templates, but some of the functions (multi-element insertions/removals) took a while, and then I got the wonderful idea that I'd make it as STL-like as I could, and then I got stuck when I tried to write my iterator classes, and satify all the requirements of the STL (which, by the way, doesn't allow a data structure like this, and is very complicated), so it kind of fizzled out. I also had trouble compiling it, because I tried to use the Microsoft VC++ compiler, and its template support was, well ... let's just say that "support" is not the right word.

Maybe I should post this idea as a puzzle in the CS section.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Kristin Smith on Oct 31st, 2002, 10:33am
Hi i'm 21 from St. Clair Shores, Michigan.
During the past few months I've been addicted to riddles.  After I figure them out I give them to some of my co-workers and it drives them nuts! :)  Anyways I found this site through a search i did online.  It's definately a good one.  If you can
e-mail me some that would be great!!  BY the way, how do you find out the answers to the ones on the website?
ThAnKs!!!  

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by TimMann on Nov 2nd, 2002, 1:46am
Hi, all. I'm 43 and live and work in Silicon Valley. I got my undergrad degree in mathematics, and I still love it. But I fell prey to the seduction of computers, departed from the true path, and wound up doing my Ph.D. in distributed operating systems. So I haven't learned nearly as much mathematics as I'd like to have. Beyond that, you can follow the link to my Web site for probably more info about me than you'd want.

The tech riddles site is tons of fun for me. It takes me back to my high school and undergrad days when I used to work on problems in the "Point Subset" and "Point Set". These were monthly newsletters that the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point used to put out for high school and college students, mostly in Wisconsin but also scattered elsewhere. The main content of each issue was a list of new problems and a couple of pages of reader-contributed solutions to previous problems. The best-worded solution would be printed, and other solvers would get their names listed. It was a big thrill for the math geeks to see our names, and sometimes our solutions, in print. I still have my collection of back issues, and perhaps I'll post some puzzles from them.

Oh, by the way, my avatar is a clip from a photo of me when I was 2 years old. I'm blowing on a daisy. I guess I was hoping it would work like blowing on a dandelion, but the petals stayed put.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Icarus on Nov 2nd, 2002, 7:34pm
Hooray! I'm not the oldest one on the board! My name's Paul Sinclair, and I'm 40. I started out in physics, but got seduced by mathematics in the middle of my undergraduate career. I ended up with a dual major BS and went on to get my PhD. in Math, specializing in producing very obscure results in Differential Geometry. Didn't look good on a resume :-/. That and some basic laziness prevented me from pursuing a career in mathematics, so now I am working as an Engineer for a major aircraft manufacturer in Wichita, Kansas (your first guess as to who is probably wrong, but if you are knowledgable on aircraft manufacturers, your second will likely be right).
I have been a fan of Martin Gardner since I was in my teens and have always been interested in anything math-related, though the eclectic way I pursue it leaves great gaps in my knowledge of several subjects. After Scientific American completely dropped true recreational mathematics from it's magazine a couple years ago, I had been without a regular source of enlightened puzzling, and was overjoyed to find this site referenced in a webcomic site I read (called Get With The Program). My only complaint is that some of the interesting threads were hashed out long before I found the site and could offer my two cents  ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Garzahd on Nov 5th, 2002, 12:24pm
My name is Matt Lahut. I grew up in the Albany NY area, went to college at Carnegie Mellon Univ (graduated this past May), and I'm currently living in the Seattle area working for MS, testing the Visual Basic compiler/IDE. So I'm still acclimating to this concept of "the real world".

Those reading the boards carefully may have noticed that I found these boards after Jonathan_The_Red posted Eric Yeh's Gibberland puzzle to an internal MS puzzle group, which stumped me enough to ask google, and the rest is history.

I've always enjoyed puzzles of various sorts. At least half of the easy section brings back some memories from high school or earlier. And of course, Martin Gardner is the man; I somehow managed to acquire a couple dozen of his puzzles without ever obtaining a Scientific American. The good/bad computer puzzle came from a college course at CMU (15-251, highly recommended if you're a young'un thinking of going to CMU). Near the end of college, I got hooked on topcoder.com, which as been very enjoyable, and even did some development work for them. Say hi to me if you see me there (as Garzahd).

Outside puzzling, I enjoy gaming of all sorts. Currently switching between the Asheron's Call 2 binge and a new nethack binge for the tournament this month. I also play bridge competitively and watch entirely too much anime. I like bridge and Go puzzles too, but decided that it'd probably be wrong to post them. If there are sufficiently many interested people, let me know and I'll post a couple.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Libby79 on Nov 10th, 2002, 4:30pm
Hi I am Libby I was wondering if anyone could give me the answer to the riddle who am I(1). I was asked it the other day by a lady looking for the answer and it has been bothering me since please someone hel so I can put my brain to rest. ???

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by william wu on Nov 10th, 2002, 7:58pm
Hi Libby, welcome to the forum. You can find an answer to that riddle here:

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_easy;action=display;num=1027922826

For future queries on riddle solutions, please check out the other forums, which are organized by category (easy medium hard putnam cs). You can see all these forums on the main page by clicking on the little house in the top forum menu.

Nice avatar by the way :)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Libby79 on Nov 10th, 2002, 11:57pm
::)Thank you for the help. I saw the answer and did not even realize it. Boy I feel stupid now. Thank William Wu for making me feel welcomed to the forum.
Libby79 :) oh by the way I am 23 Live in Nevada and I am a freshman in college at the community college here.  I am studying to be a Vet. Hi everyone. ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by reranki on Nov 14th, 2002, 5:43pm
Heh, well my story is linearly dependent on the previous ones so I don't have a whole lot more to add.

I'm 17, a soon to be CS/math major (big surprise there) at _____ (I'll have to wait till April to say for sure ;). I registered a name a while back but tried very hard soon after to stay away from the forums in response to an old habit I have -- looking at answers way too soon. ;)

My puzzling hobby (er, you know what I mean) began early middle school when I'd beg my mom to take me to the library daily; I'd dig up old SciAm issues on microfilm and spend hours reading Martin Gardner's column. Great fun. Unfortunately I never got much beyond that -- my classmates at school found my conundrums more of an annoyance than a challenge so I had no one to share with. Poor me.

Later I joined MENSA in hopes of meeting cool people that wouldn't mind sharing a riddle or three, but that didn't happen. It was mainly a buncha old ladies in my local chapter that would rather talk about, well, normal things. Gossip. Cooking. Knitting. Ugh. After middle school, thus, I stopped challenging myself with cute little puzzles and moved on to programming as a pastime. I found this site on slashdot and ever since I've regained an interest in the whole riddle thing.

Thanks, William. :)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Capn_Curry on Dec 9th, 2002, 8:37am
Hi!  My name's Mark, and I'm 22.  I live in Las Vegas, where I work as tech support for broadband internet access on the graveyard shift.  I'm stashing money aside to go to college on, and I'm looking at an A. A. in Photography.  I *used* to major in Computer Science (went to a magnet high school for technology), but decided that as much fun as programming is when I'm working on my own projects and on my own terms, I *hate* doing it in a corporate or professional environment.

I found the riddle site with a very simple Google search for "riddles".  So far, I've been working through the easy puzzles, with a little bit of venturing into medium (and a perusal of the MS section, out of curiosity).  I was very pleased with myself for solving the light bulb puzzle... kicked myself in the butt for hours for failing the coin and wine bottle puzzle.   ::)

Looking forward to seeing new riddles, and I'm going to devote some of my long, dull hours here at work to coming up with new puzzles to share.  It is a pleasure and privilege to meet you all.  

- Cap'n Curry


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by kdkaboom55 on Dec 27th, 2002, 11:30pm
Hi, my name is Khadijah(kah-DEE-jah) and I found this site through a yahoo search. I'm 27 and a nursing student in Detroit, MI. I've always enjoyed riddles and though most of those listed on this site are COMPLETELY out of my league, I enjoyed reading over the rationales and witty commentary in
the forum.

P.S. anxiously awaiting an answer to the Cryptic Address problem....I also was under the impression that the chick's name is S. Woods, but then I thought, what if the S were supposed to represent a 5, and the address is actually 5 Woods St.?
Signed,
STILL STUMPED


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Crickee on Jan 14th, 2003, 8:44pm
Helloo...

I'm Nikki....CIS major....living in Orange County, CA....i found this site through yahoo search engine too cuz  i've been searching around for all kind of riddles....i truly luv this site..... :P

Nice meeting you all!!!  :)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Kevin Hughes on Jan 15th, 2003, 5:45pm
Hi, I'm Kevin and I love this site!  Thank you!

I am a recent computer science graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  I found this site while searching for sample technical questions to prepare for a job interview next week.

They probably won't ask me the marble question, but this is great for keeping the ol' problem solving skills sharp!

I started with the easys and got the first 4.  But they took a while because I tend to use a "brute force" aproach that usually takes me the long way.

I'll keep plugging away though.  Thanks again!

kjh


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Enigma on Jan 20th, 2003, 5:17pm
eek! What's with all the math, computers and physics going on here? Am I the only chemistry, biology and medicine supporter??  ;)

My name's Jonathan. I'm 18 and I live in Montreal (Canada woot!). I'll be starting at McGill university in the fall and I hope to be a cardiologist sometime in the future. I adore animals, especially unusual ones. I own chinchillas and hedgehogs for example. My sights are set on a bat or some kind of bird of prey next. I've been told I'm on that fine line between impishly charming and just plain weird, but you take what you can get I suppose. I enjoy spending long cool nights alone with someone enjoying their company, or perhaps serenading them with love poetry and I.....ok um off topic there.

A-hem. Well I found out about the site less than 24 hours ago at 2 in the morning when i entered in riddles in the google search engine. Spent 3 hours straight on the site after that worming my way through the easy section. Most were pretty fun, heh although i found that long debate over the monty hall goat one somewhat hilarious. I'll be starting the medium ones soon which I'm looking forward to.

When I'm not solving or creating riddles, I'm writing poetry, playing basketball, or trying to figure out a way to get a Nobel prize. So far all I've come up with is steal one, but it's a work in progress.

Amazing site, and cheers to Mr. William Wu for what will no doubt provide me with hours of agonizing entertainment.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by aero_guy on Jan 30th, 2003, 6:04am
I registered!!  I have no idea how I originally found this forum.  Many months ago I somehow stumbled on it and took about a month and a half to get almost all the easy and medium riddles and maybe half the hard... without realizing there was a board for discussion.  Thank goodness, because there were a couple that I desperately needed hints on and were driving me nuts.  I have always loved riddles, and I even send out an email update to friends who have moved away every so often and always include a riddle.  It encourages people to write back and keep in touch.

I have been posting for a couple months now and never got around to registering... I tend to put things off... like graduating.  I am 27 and about a year away from my doctorate in aerospace engineering at Penn State.

I just wanna thank William for this great service he provides.  And please, someone please solve the cryptic address.  This one seriously drives me nuts.  I would also like to put out a request for what someone recently called "literary riddles".  Specifically poetic, often rhyming, riddles that tend to be old chesnuts.  The Bilbo/Gollum riddles are prime examples.  They have a certain beauty to them, and though the more recent puzzles are fun, they tend to be more math problems than riddles (particularly in the hard section) though they are still a lot fun to solve.  I guess I am one of those geeks who like to math homework.

I have had fun posting with you all for a while, and now I even get a nifty picture next to my name!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by simplicity on Feb 28th, 2003, 12:54am
Darlene here. I've been collecting riddles since I was 7 years old. I'm involved in an AI project which keeps me pretty busy and when I'm not working - I need something to distract me.
I'm 25 and been at my job for 8 years. We've come along way since 8 years ago...as any of you who know anything about AI would know.

I also don't care for Mensa or anything Mensa related- to agree with some previous posts.

I'm on hiatus for a few weeks and can't sleep, which is typical. Tonight I found this site which seems to be pretty interesting, even though a lot of the riddles are old hat. There are some that I am enjoying working on right now...I'll let you know when I figure them out.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by khristoma on Mar 7th, 2003, 5:55pm
??? I am very confused  I have a joke that is getting on my nerves that I cant ANSWER!!!
here it is :

The man that makes it does not buy it
the man that buys it does not use it
the man that use it does not know it
what is it?

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by simplicity on Mar 7th, 2003, 11:57pm
A coffin.

In fifth grade, the riddle went...

The man who makes it, sells it.
The man who buys it, never uses it.
The man who uses it, never knows he's using it.
What is it?




Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Eric Ford on Mar 10th, 2003, 2:37pm
:) Hey All!!!
I came to this site by searching. So far i love this site. I use these riddles in science class to help pass the time. Together me and my friends ponder over them for days until we find what we think is the best answer. When we do we post it or look at other posts to see how well we came to the answer. I love this site (once again) There is a huge base of riddles that will keep us thinking for semesters  :D. Well go Louisville Cardinals and keep the riddles coming!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Ford

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by KicksGenius on Mar 14th, 2003, 1:49pm
Hey,
My name is Alex Wright, I am a 15 year old male with a grade 10 education, albeit IB. I know nothing of coputer science, although it interests me deeply. I like math a hella lot, got 95% right now. I found this site when I was looking for answers to riddles about three weeks ago. I guess I've just kinda stuck.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by k0m0d0 on Mar 22nd, 2003, 7:37pm
Hi, my name is Kris Botha. I found this site while searching the web for riddles. I have a BS degree in Math/CS from UBC (Canada), and my work interests include graphics and games programming.

I like the idea of having at least 1 unsolved riddle in one's mind at all times - it gives the o'l subconscious something interesting to do and provides you with a sense of accomplishment when you do solve it.
I think that a familiarity with riddles is a great problem-solving tool in the sense that many riddles are merely instances of well-known mathematical / philosophical concepts.

I am new to this board, but I look forward to perusing the forums and acquainting myself with other solvers' methods of analysis. I also find it very amusing to read discussions that pick apart (vague) puzzles in horrifically interesting detail (e.g. the riddle involving the Professor's planned "surprise" test).

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by wowbagger on Mar 24th, 2003, 7:47am
At long last, here's my post to this thread.

My name is wowbagger - no wait, it's not! Maybe I spend too much time on this forum...
Non-riddlers use to call me Markus. As you may already know, I'm 27 and live in Germany. In the northwestern part, to be a little more precise, although I was born and raised in Bavaria. No, I don't wear lederhosen (http://www.lederhosenmuseum.de/Klederhosenmuseum1.html)!

I'm a fully-fledged physicist, but not quite grown-up - and fond of it! The not-so-amusing details: Diploma thesis on some condensed matter theory stuff, now working on my Ph.D. thesis in the area of predictability of chaotic models. [hide]Not the kind of models you have in mind![/hide]

Among my hobbies are chess, music, literature, films (way too few shown with subtitles here :(), foreign languages and philosophy. And math. ::)
Oh, and English humour.  ;D   -> Zum Lied -> (http://www.stone-dead.asn.au/albums-cds/lyrics/holzfallerliederhosen.html)

I found this site through a search for math-related riddles. Like Pietro, I hadn't heard of slashdot before either!
A huge thank you to William for putting so much time and effort into this increasingly enigmatic site! :D
Thanks also to all fellow riddlers for their brainstorming and brainteasing!
[hide]Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition![/hide]

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Kitty on Mar 27th, 2003, 1:58pm
Hiya

im Nina, im 13 and found this this by googling. i love this site and at school people are alway begging me for the answers to the riddle so im kind of a mystery person.

I think this site is wicked!!!!!!1 ;D

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rmsgrey on Apr 14th, 2003, 8:28am
Hi, I'm rmsgrey, and I use that name everywhere I go online (every so often I run it through search engines and have yet to find anyone else using it).

I've posted a few comments in the Hard puzzles forum, before deciding I might want to edit the occasional reply and joining up.

I'm 23, and currently taking a year out after graduation (Maths/Computer Science). I have at least one riddle I haven't seen around here yet, which I might get around to posting sometime.

Edit: See, I said I thought it'd be useful! Anyway, I found this site while searching for information on Rubik's Cube - primarily focussed on the God Number.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by maryl on Apr 19th, 2003, 12:49pm
Yo all;
My name is Mary Lou. I originally posted my Introduction in the Easy Section-my sense of direction always was a little off; or maybe it was a self-esteem issue-ha.
I live west of Toronto, Ontario. I'm 41, and always had a little thing for riddles. I enjoy the use of this forum, and appreciate Wu's efforts in creating it, and keeping it up.
I too enjoy the "literary riddles"-always enjoyed writing and poetry; and some of the stuff I read here is quite a treat.
I also love Art, graphic design, comedy; and the Scriptures.
Keep it coming guys.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by mistysakura on Apr 20th, 2003, 6:27pm
Hi, my name's Ada.  I'm 14, and am seriously comforted by the fact that at least 3/4 of the people here are older than I am, since I can't solve half the riddes they can.

I like chess, reading and classical music.  Very bizarre interests for a teenager, especially a girl, I know.  but I'm weird, and you'll just have to put up with it.

I found this site with Google (I didn't mention nother one of my interests was riddles, because I thought it would be obvious.)  I decided to go look for some riddle, real brainteasers, instead of 'Who-am-I's and one-liners.  I love this site - it gives me something to think about.  I think my problem-solving ability has improved quite a bit - just the other day, I solved one in seconds, and people kept bugging me for the answer.

My favourite puzzles are logic and chess puzzles.  I don't like maths puzzles, because I can never solve them.  (To this day, I still don't quite get the concept of modulus.  I'm in Year 9.)  When I do chess puzzles, I always have to set them up on my board, or else I can't think clearly, for some reason.  So, my desk is somewhat cluttered with fallen chess pieces half the time, and my mother bugs me about it.

Anyway, back to something you'd actually be interested in.  One of the reasons I like this site is because it is not so easy to find the answers.  For instance, the 5-move checkmate puzzle really made me think, and if the soultion had just been right there, I might have just given up.  I did at the end, and looked at someone else's answer on the forum, only to discover that I had only missed 1 very crucial move.  Extremely disappointing thought that if I had kept at it for just two more minutes, I might have found the soultion all by myself.  So, that's my opinion on not showing answers.

Another thing about me - I don't like people who blindly follow their religion, and believe it because they have never thought to go into depth and use their innate reasoning.  I have no problem with true believers, but I hate sheep.  Especially when they're intelligent people - it pains me.

I'd love to be a writer someday, but as you can tell, I'm not doing too well.  I can;t even find a way to end my post.  so here's my best attempt.

This site should be listed under the definition of 'brainpower' in all dictionaries.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Kitty on Apr 22nd, 2003, 10:48am
Wahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I m not the only teenager who uses this site and doesen t understand half the riddles on it!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Marla on Apr 24th, 2003, 9:17am
Hello Beautiful People

My name is Marla and I am a 26 year old secretary from England.

;D

I finished my maths degree a while back now and went into teaching.  I am currently occupationally slumming as a PA- It's the new black (Douglas Coupland, Generation X).

With regards to the 100 prison door puzzle.  When I was a teacher, I came across this puzzle in a slightly different form and although I didn't know the solution, I thought I'd give it a go, just for a laugh.

You get the kids to stand up and then sit down if they are a multiple of 2, then swap if they are a multiple of 3 etc.

Unfortunately, due to only having 33 kids in my class, with some pretty thick ones in the mix, as you can imagine, i didn't find a solution, I just ended up with a lot of confused looking kids and that's about it.

I've just had another go at it with my own fair brain, however, seems to have rotted: Not sure why...

Nice to find a site that may keep me challenged before I give up the ghost and end it all by becoming a treckie techie.

Lovely to meet you all.  


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by jon_G on May 1st, 2003, 7:17pm
   Well to start my name is Jonathan Gould 17, I live in Lady Lake Florida and curently attend high school in the 11th grade, while starting my business in auto sales and devoting most of my time to starting and maintaining my friends cell phone store.

   I have no idea how I found this site all I know is that it was about a year ago. I can say I am probably one of the few people here that doesn't love math :-/, but I love the mental challenge that I get from reading and posting riddles. And who can forget willy wutang.ohh the memories.

   My hobbies are riddles, business books, boxing, researching great business peaple(I found out I am related to the,at his time, fabulously wealthy ;D railroad owner Jay Gould) and maintaining my body and mind. heh this site helps alot in that area.
   
   I hope that this site continues to grow and that the riddles never run out. I thank William Wu for the creation of this site and the effect it has had on everyone here. Well that's it for now, I guess I'm not that interesting. :)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by otter on May 5th, 2003, 1:19pm
After reading the previous posts, it seems I might be the geezer in this crowd.  My name is Karl Ott and I'm a 51 year young male.  I am the pretreatment technician for the local wastewater utility here in southern Maryland (just south of Washington D.C.) after retiring from my previous job as a project manager for another utility.

I have always been intrigued by riddles, especially how they challenge one's accepted thinking and interpretation.  I've done my share of forehead smacking (followed by a "DUH") when reading the various fora and discovering I wasn't even in the same county, let alone the same ballpark with my answers.  I've got to admit, it's been a long time since I've had to deal with any math on the level exhibited on this site.  I try to follow, but math beyond calculus II was not required for us poor chemistry majors in the early 70's.  Thanks to those members whose posts explain their answers in some detail.  :D  I guess you'd call me a lurker, but not for lack of trying.  Ususally, by the time I work out a problem (at least those I can work out), the thread has been answered or I don't have anything new to add to the thread.

I don't remember when, but I found this site quite by accident after following a series of links that started on The Straight Dope (http://www.straightdope.com) site.

Many thanks to William for all the work you do on this site and for keeping my mind pliable (even if somewhat battered). :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by aero_guy on May 20th, 2003, 8:29am
Glad to see you otter, I was probably the one who posted the link here from the Straight Dope.  Glad to see it pulled in some interesting people.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by otter on May 21st, 2003, 6:48pm

on 05/20/03 at 08:29:12, aero_guy wrote:
Glad to see you otter, I was probably the one who posted the link here from the Straight Dope.  Glad to see it pulled in some interesting people.


Glad to be here aero_guy.  I love the Straight Dope - I read it religiously.  Cecil and the SD Staff are great!  I wish they still had the TV version, though.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Sha on May 26th, 2003, 6:38pm
Hello, I'm currently 14 years old, male, and can solve just about half the riddles on this site, it takes alot of thinking. I have no knowledge of advanced math, I found this site through google.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Lightboxes on Jun 9th, 2003, 9:09pm
I did the same thing Aero_Guy did.  I read the riddles and didn't realize until months later about the forum.  

I'm currently 21, a woodworker, student at the U of Utah, and love to all types of things, such as drawing, snowboarding, basic electronics, and of course...riddles.  I have a diploma in cabinetry and now I'm working on a business major.  

I have so much trouble understanding all that higher math probability and blah blah blah.
.:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:..:=-=:.
I LOVE the extreme analytical approach that basically everyone attempts to use.  It has helped me in my everyday life to find the truth of situations...I won't go into this idea so I don't take up unnecessary space.  

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by jelte on Jun 10th, 2003, 5:19am
Hi i am Jelte (that's a male name in my country), i'm fiftheen years old and i am from the netherlands or whatever you call it. i don't have work because i go to school. i only speak engish when i'm in the english lesson on my school. and when i'm not in the english lesson i speak dutch. i got on this site because i need some classic old riddles for a role playing game (rpg) that i am playing called advanced dungeons and dragons (ADandD). most of the riddles on this page are really usefull so i'm glad i've found this site. beside's going to school and playing ADandD i like playing chess and computergames. well that was it i guess.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by TenaliRaman on Jul 4th, 2003, 4:57am
Hi,
My name is Arun Iyer.I am 19 , from India and currently third year student of computer engineering.

My Academic Interests : Maths(especially number theory) and Physics(especially quantum mechanics)

My Other interests : sports(all kinds except golf),music(from classical to rock),movies(action,horror preferred) and reading(from literature,philosophical to comic books).

My hobby : philately (not collected many tho just 27)

My word on this site : Thanks William.This site is awfully great.(signed : ox-y-moron)   ;D  ;)  :)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by vipin_jain on Jul 26th, 2003, 4:41am
Hi,
I m vipin jain...
I m working in soft comp in india..
i found that site through google..mainly for soving puzzles..


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Elysha on Aug 8th, 2003, 1:29am
I just discovered this website today, and couldn't resist spending over three hours among the riddle collections (easy section -- hopefully I'll get better with practice!).  I've loved straightforward logic problems since I was a child.  I find riddles with creative twists to them much more difficult but also dazzling once found out.  I really like the fact that there isn't an answer page, since I'm easily tempted.  I expect I will be a fairly regular visitor, as time permits.  The discussion forum is excellent!

I'm 19 years old, from California.  I'll be starting this Fall in Oxford University as an undergraduate studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics.  I also have passions for literature, particularly the works of Jane Austen, and for choral singing.

Thanks to William Wu for this website!  Go Berkeley!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by m|ndless on Aug 9th, 2003, 12:59am
hi i'm will am sixteen and i take science and maths

i found this site 'bout two weeks ago and have been here everyday since... kinda an obsession it's become... that my folks think i'm loony... don't any of your's do?

well but i can't solve everything here yet... in fact dunno most of it(and hence newbie)

hobbies... riddles, and i'm obsessed with computer games too

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Aisha on Aug 13th, 2003, 9:36am
Hey I'm Aisha.  Politics, philosophy and economics student at oxford, probs one of the fairly few girls on this site (few that register or post anyway it seems).  One of my friends posted a link to this site on another forum I used.  It's really cool!  And the riddles are something to think about whilst doing the pretty boring jobs i have to do (like waitressing) this holiday.  Anyways, I'm getting better at them, pretty much solved a medium one today :) - I will make it to hard!!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Sameer on Aug 19th, 2003, 11:59am
[Edit] Content Edited because of ... ah well because I wanted to [/Edit]

Hi, I am Sameer born and brought up in India. I am an Engineer by profession but have great interest in Math and Physics. Whilst I use these very limitedly in my current job I try to learn or refresh few things here. My life choices has taken me many places and at present I can be located on a piece of land called California!!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Jimmy Hansen on Mar 13th, 2004, 7:27pm
Howdy! My name is Jimmy Hansen. I'm 23 and a programmer. Title is "Computer Services Specialist IV" at the University of Georgia. I also still own my own company that I used to contract from. I administrate this web site for work: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp and for fun I co-administrate http://www.kali.net

I've been here since it was slashdotted. I posted the 7-11 riddle in the CS forum a long time ago. My favorite riddle would have to be the 100 prisoner one. The logic professor pop quiz one is my second fav.

This site is a gem of the Internet! These forums house the most intelligent community I've ever participated in.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Lee Zuo Min on Mar 31st, 2004, 1:01am
Hello everybody.
  My name is Lee Zuo Min. I'm male and 31 years old. Graduated from Cal State U at Northridge in Master Mech Eng. Nowaday, managing a textile factory, so not using much Math and whatever I studied as before. Kind of miss them.  Recently, my friend sent me an e-mail with a challange riddle. Love it so much   ::).  When he mailed me later the address of web site he got it, I ran for it.
  Thus, here I am. I'll come here occasionally when I have time to solve a riddle or two.  WELCOME any suggestion   :)
Lee Zuo Min

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Three Hands on Apr 27th, 2004, 5:52am
Hi everyone

My name's Peter Stewart, I'm currently 19 years old and doing Philosophy at Durham (Van Mildert College) - hence all the posts on the "Odds on God exists" thread, and virtually none on the actual riddles  ::)

I didn't really find this site - my brother (see if you can guess who he is...) introduced me to the site a while ago, and I've finally got around to seeing if I can have a go at some of these riddles.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Heya Gosper on May 18th, 2004, 5:23am
Gosper's the name. Heya Gosper.
Like a more famous Gosper (Bill) I am some kind of computer guy. Specifically, I am a graduate in I.T. (software engineering) at Southern Cross University in Australia. I now work as a Java programmer.
I found the site while I was looking for information on the P=NP "riddle". And I love it! I plan to waste (ahem, spend) a lot of time here racking my brain...



Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Manuel Cervantes on May 19th, 2004, 3:37pm
I am "he who was created"
I am "he who was born"
I am ME

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Icarus on May 19th, 2004, 7:21pm
No you aren't! I am!

;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Three Hands on May 20th, 2004, 2:05am
No, I'm Spartacus!!

:P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rmsgrey on May 20th, 2004, 2:55am
No, I'm Brian of Nazareth!

.[hide]For those who are still wondering, I'm Three Hands' brother[/hide]

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on May 21st, 2004, 3:30am

on 05/20/04 at 02:55:06, rmsgrey wrote:
No, I'm Brian of Nazareth!

.[hide]For those who are still wondering, I'm Three Hands' brother[/hide]

Brian, we all have our own crosses to bear.


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Three Hands on May 21st, 2004, 5:25am

on 05/21/04 at 03:30:12, THUDandBLUNDER wrote:
Brian, we all have our own crosses to bear.


I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not by such a statement...  >:(

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on May 21st, 2004, 6:24am

Quote:
I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not by such a statement...

Not. The last time I checked Brian of Nazareth had never had a brother.    :P
(But perhaps truth is stranger than fiction.)   :D


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Three Hands on May 21st, 2004, 10:20am
Well, Jesus had a brother, although he didn't apear to play much of a part in Jesus' life (at least, I can't think of any occasions when the evangelists mentioned him...). Given Brian's life seems to be to have been something of a parallel with Jesus', it therefore wouldn't surprise me...

I was more concerned about the "cross to bear" metaphor which could be construed as suggesting that a brother is something of a burden (however true this may actually be  ::) ), especially given the fact you included the whole, unedited post...

<edit> oops - meant evangelists, not Apostles. Good job I'm not doing theology...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Icarus on May 21st, 2004, 8:12pm
Roman Catholics disagree - claiming that it is a mistranslation and really they were cousins, but the Bible mentions 4 brothers to Jesus: James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and some unnamed sisters (Mark 6:2-4; Matt 13:54-56).

And far from being unmentioned, almost every mention of the name "James" in the Bible after Acts 12 (wherein the Apostle James, the brother of John, is put to death - the only death of an Apostle in the Bible) is refering to James the brother of Jesus, and not to other James', including the other Apostle of that name. The book of James was written by him, and in latter years he became the head of the church in Jerusalem. Also, the book of Jude was written by Jesus' brother Judas ("Judas" being a name of ill-repute for christians, Jude's name was given a shorter form.)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Three Hands on May 22nd, 2004, 2:18am
Fair enough, but "the Life of Brian" never gets as far as the Acts of the Apostles (or even the end of the crucifixion), and I do not believe Jesus' brothers were mentioned by that point. Indeed, I thikn I'm right in saying that James (Jesus' brother) did not believe Jesus was the Messiah until after the Resurrection, so would be unlikely to have received any real mention from the authors of the Gospels.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on May 22nd, 2004, 8:36am

Quote:
Fair enough, but "the Life of Brian" never gets as far as the Acts of the Apostles (or even the end of the crucifixion), and I do not believe Jesus' brothers were mentioned by that point.

Be that as it may, in the film - as he trudges up Calvary - Brian can be distinctly heard humming
the tune to the well-known song It Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

 :D


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by DeMark on May 29th, 2004, 6:02am
Enough with "the Life of Brian".  :P

I am Nikolina DeMark from Croatia, Europe.
I'm 15, I'm not going to write about my education because the school system is different here (let's just say I'm a high school student).
I found this site by googling, I like it very much because I have been crazy about riddles since I was 10. I didn't know some of the people here were that young (and I am also glad I'm not the youngest here)!
Something about me- I am crazy about books- I have enjoyed reading for my whole life, especially crime stories- Mary Higgins Clark, Agatha Christie, Minette Walters and many others (even Edgar Allan Poe, although his stories are a little bizarre).  I like Art- I'm a very good drawer [which explains the picture in my profile- I like anime very much (I'm not sure if anime is the right word in English, but I think it is)]. I am an excellent student, I am especially interested in History and Chemistry (a weird combination :)).
I would like to be a writer one day, or at least have my own bookshop. I love animals, especially cats. I like music (classical, dance, techno, pop.... well, everything except hard rock- is that the right word? Please let me know). I also like good crime movies and Japanese cartoons. And I don't like Maths (why did I get the feeling I'm the only one here that doesn't like Maths?  :-/).
Well, that's all I can think of. If I remember something else, I will let you know.  :)




Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Leon on May 29th, 2004, 8:22am
I am a 30 year old father of 1 (12 weeks old today). I am a CPA in Silicon Valley and work at a computer company that makes their own OS and peripherals in additon to computers (you get 3 guesses and the first two don't count). I work in Operations Finance and do everything from compliance with the SEC and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles - even less exciting that it sounds unless you are an Accounting geek like me) to designing costing and supply chain systems - I just get someone else to do the coding fortunately.

Not sure how I found this site, but glad I did. It really keeps me learning new things and remebering why I went into Accounting instead of Math as my major.

I frequent this site when  I am not working on my house (almost done with a 2 year remodel/update done nearly entirely by myself) or trying to avoid the media. I suppose you could say that "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb drove me to this site.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Methuselah on Jul 11th, 2004, 6:40am
Methuselah describes me (not the 6 liter variety) -- I'm 67, a retired teacher existing (living isn't a word that I would use in this context) in a  Senior Citizens Home in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. I have no background in maths or science. Puzzles have been a passion with me for over 60 years, but these days I seem to nod off whenever I try to solve a toughie ! But they are useful, I hope, in keeping Alzheimers at bay for a few more years.

I have a slow dial-up connection, and what with the high dial-up and ISP charges, I may be able to drop in here only on Sundays (when the concessional charges are within my means). I joined today -- and I already love this site. A friend from another puzzles group gave me this link a few days back, and if he is reading this, a big THANK YOU, Florian.

You won't normally find me posting answers or pasting problems, but I'll be around, benefiting from what all you folks are doing.

See you.

Title: hello
Post by rochelle marks on Nov 24th, 2004, 9:57am
hello my name is rochelle. i go on a website where in a special club we have a guild that has certain riddles that we have 2 answet 2 get a prize. this week i am the one that has to make up the riddle and i cant think what to write! :'( can any1 help? it cant be to hard because it has different age groups, but i would be very greatful if someone could help :) ;D :D

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on Dec 5th, 2004, 3:54am
Rochelle, if you want some word riddles try the What Am I? (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=what_am_i) or What Happened? (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_whathappened) categories.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Ajax on May 30th, 2005, 4:47am
Well, I think I should write here also  :)
My name is Panagiotis Apostolopoulos, difficult it may seem for some to say it, it's rather easy in Greece where I live. I am 24 years old and I've studied mechanical engineering at the national technical university of athens. At this moment I am doing an internship in a rather big (for our standards) company but in a position with no interest (thank god I found your site or else my name would be written in the obituaries...). I belong to the kind of people who don't know exactly what they want to do in their lives and have stuck. Moreover, from august 2005 I will be serving my military service (yes, in greece it's still compulsory) for a whole year. My main interests are traveling (mostly abroad when I have the money), comics (mostly european creators; you should check out artists like Bilal and Mattotti) and aikido, but I'll never say no to a nice cold beer by the beach.
I have no  great hopes for my intelligence, but I believe that riddles are a good means to challenge and exercise one's mind (Wu, keep up the good work  ;) ).
P.S. Anyone knowing for companies who employ mech. engineers with knowledge in logistics and production management? (Maybe I should get back to basics and start a new carrier.)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jun 24th, 2005, 4:23am
Hey guys..

I'm Meor Hamzah, from Malaysia. 26 years old, currently working as a fabrication engineer. A wife, and a baby expected by the end of this year. Hooray !!  ;D  ;D

Found this site by googling, and I'd have to say this is by far the best riddles site on the web. Thanks to william for putting up this site. Great job !!

p/s : any of u guys notice that the riddlers here are mostly from engineering background ??

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Grimbal on Jun 24th, 2005, 5:35am
KL?

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jun 24th, 2005, 6:13pm

on 06/24/05 at 05:35:30, Grimbal wrote:
KL?


Ipoh actually, about 2.5 hours drive from KL. Why, any secret mistress there ?  :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Grimbal on Jun 25th, 2005, 5:12am
No, official wife from KL.  I spent 1 year there.

For anyone who wonders:
KL = Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia,
Ipoh is another Malaysian city.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jun 27th, 2005, 3:10am

on 06/25/05 at 05:12:24, Grimbal wrote:
No, official wife from KL.  I spent 1 year there.

For anyone who wonders:
KL = Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia,
Ipoh is another Malaysian city.


Official wife ?? So, how many unofficial wives do you have ?  ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Grimbal on Jun 27th, 2005, 5:38am
Official, I mean: not secret.

Anything else is none of your business!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by 0mn1.at.operamail on Jul 3rd, 2005, 9:07am
Allo allo,

By the looks of it no one has posted to this section for a while, and from quick glance I seem to be the only University drop out ;P

Never the less these puzzles are fun, cheers for a good site

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jul 3rd, 2005, 8:45pm

on 07/03/05 at 09:07:39, 0mn1.at.operamail wrote:
Allo allo,

By the looks of it no one has posted to this section for a while, and from quick glance I seem to be the only University drop out ;P


Don't sweat it, some of my coolest friends are university's drop out. In fact, I nearly became one.  ;D

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by River_Phoenix on Jul 18th, 2005, 10:52am
I'm a dead actor who starred most famously as Young Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I overdosed on drugs and died before my time.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by SMQ on Jul 18th, 2005, 11:25am
So...Teh Interweb is wired into the Spiritual Relms these days; good thing to know.  So are you posting from an Ouiji Board with TDD software or what?
;D

--SMQ

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by River_Phoenix on Jul 18th, 2005, 1:32pm
Haha are you kidding? Dead people don't have internet connections! hahaha

I'm just wardriving the worms in ground next to me. They're running linux (knoppix deadCD), and they got wicked fast wireless pipes.

(the horse in the next stall is a ventriloquist  ;D)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Grimbal on Jul 22nd, 2005, 6:40am
You don't have ethernet wherever you are?

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by River_Phoenix on Jul 22nd, 2005, 6:42am
My soul's in heaven, my dear fellow, not below!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Raghavan on Aug 19th, 2005, 1:27pm
Hello
I am Raghavan. I am 29 and will be 30 next wednesday :). I did my MS from Clemson and I am currently working on image processing algorithms which relies heavily on mathematics.

I was hooked to mathematics during my undergraduate days and won a few mathematics olympiads during that time. These sets of puzzles are awesome and I look forward to solving more in the near future


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Robby Cruise on Sep 27th, 2005, 4:34pm
I dont know if i am sending this to the right person or not, but who cares. If you can answer my question than i appreciate it.

Are there answers to these riddles that we can access? if so please contact me at
Rootcanal32@yahoo.com
thanks

Robby...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Sep 28th, 2005, 12:33am
Most of the answers are on this forum, somewhere. There's not a compiled list of answers though.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Grimbal on Oct 15th, 2005, 7:37am
Sorry Enigma, I am also in Maths and computers.

I live in Geneva, Switzerland.   I am male and 40+.  Am I the oldest?  Actually I showed this site to a retired man from India, so probably not.

I studied Maths and Computer science in Geneva.  Both for fun.  Of course I ended up doing programming.  My dream job would have been "omniheurist", a problem-solver, one who is asked to solve problems, like how to organize a partking to maximize the number of places or how to design a 6-way highway interchange.  But I ended up doing the usual business management programs and never used much maths.

I think I was given the URL to this site from another riddle hobbyist on another forum.  Anyway, since then I come here daily.  I tend to give my opinion on all problems, even if they have been solved already.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by inexorable on Oct 23rd, 2005, 9:39am
hi all,
I saw this website recently through search engine abt a month ago. This is THE BEST site for riddles, and with so many really smart people it is even lively. I guess no other forum has so many clever people as members who interact continuously. I am really addicted to riddles by this.

    Cheers to Mr.william wu and moderators.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by James Doran on Oct 27th, 2005, 4:39pm
I classify myself as a pedestrian caught in the cross fire of puzzles, riddles, enigmas. I do not have an analytically trained mind. It is the creation of the problems that fascinate and enthral me. Being endowed with a good memory with excellent recall on detail I should be able to keep up with you younger folk. Alas I cannot but I will keep trying. Thank you kindly and peace be with you.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by beatsamurai on Oct 31st, 2005, 10:50am
Hi all.  I found this site a few years ago (google) after a college friend challenged me with a great riddle that, once solved, only left me looking for more.  At the time my favorite courses had been along the lines of number theory, cryptography, chaos theory, and combinatorics, and it was great to find a site that had such a large collection of math and logic puzzles with an insightful and intelligent community to back it up.  The website and forum quickly became a catalyst for my growing interest in recreational mathematics.

Since my first visit to the site, I graduated from University of Maryland with a BS in Mathematics and BA in Economics.  I'm now 23 and working as an analyst (gotta love ambiguous job titles), but I've recently been considering going back for a graduate degree in math.

Like many have said before, this is by far the best riddle site out there, and big thanks to William, the moderators, and frequent posters who keep this going.

Cheers.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by pcbouhid on Nov 16th, 2005, 4:38am
Hi, I´m brazilian, engineer, 58-years old, and my passions are math and logic (besides my 3 sons, that obviously, comes first). I´m not sure, but I think I found this site "googling", and as I am a regular contributor to another site (an English one), I intend to participate of this too. By now, I have no wink to identify me, but I´ll look for one. Cheers to all.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JocK on Nov 24th, 2005, 11:13am

on 11/16/05 at 04:38:11, pcbouhid wrote:
as I am a regular contributor to another site (an English one), I intend to participate of this too.


That shows... with your arrival a swell of challanging problems has hit this forum...!  :)

Welcome!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by alien on Dec 24th, 2005, 5:39pm
http://www.geocities.com/alien624837/mojas1.jpg
This is I! I am currently 27.



And this is how I am going to look in 20 years:
http://www.geocities.com/alien624837/freak.gif

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by pinkcat on Apr 16th, 2006, 10:36pm
I'm worried about the cat ^ ^ ^ ^!

Hi I'm 27, female, Australian and a Security Officer.
I found this place through a stumble search for logic and have been tearing my hair out ever since.
I have no uni qualifications at all and I'm blonde so....
My mother was a huge fan of cyrptic crosswords and rubic puzzles so we all grew up just playing around with them.
9 times out of 10 I will get an answer that makes no sense at all but I dont mind as I enjoy the challenge.

I'm still feeling my way around so I think thats it for now.

Pleased to 'meet' you all ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Lozboz on Jun 19th, 2006, 8:36pm
Hey I'm 17 yr old High School student from Western Australia. I found this site when I typed riddles into google (I was researching riddles that I could use in my Dungeons and Dragons Campaign). I like Biology and therefore riddles that incorporate it. I also like logic puzzles and those that require lateral thinking because I want to "think outside the box" and increase my wisdom.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Aravis on Jul 26th, 2006, 1:46pm
Hello

My name is Jim.  I'm a 20 year old senior in Chemical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.

I've always loved riddles, and up to this point, my only real place to get new riddles has been from my fraternity brothers.  (Yes, my fraternity has a higher proportion of people who do this kind of riddle than who drink)  I discovered this site on google during my internship at a large corporation to whom I leased my soul for the summer.

I've solved over half the puzzles, but still maintain my noob status on the forums, as most of the puzzles have been hashed out long before I discovered the site.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by maji on Aug 3rd, 2006, 1:32am
Hi :)
I'm maji
I found this site while looking for material for my forum.
I need help to supply my group with an answer to the riddle
about the address that came out wrong
but still reached the lady's home
Wood, S
April
England

Please can someone help me.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by BNC on Aug 3rd, 2006, 3:08am

on 08/03/06 at 01:32:57, maji wrote:
Hi :)
I'm maji
I found this site while looking for material for my forum.
I need help to supply my group with an answer to the riddle
about the address that came out wrong
but still reached the lady's home
Wood, S
April
England

Please can someone help me.


Maji,

You can find the answer in the original thread. (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_medium;action=display;num=1037827556)

I do believe, however, that proper netiquette requires you to ask for William's permission prior to "borrowing" his riddles.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by maji on Aug 3rd, 2006, 3:37am
BNC

Thank you for your response
and I am very sorry that I did not ask for permission before I used the riddle.

We are a group of forummers who like to solve riddles while mostly having fun.
We are part of a site that is very diverse and our riddle thread has been a great source of joy..
I could give the url and maybe you would like to see what happened when I admitted that I do not have the answer...
We are a great bunch of people but alas not all as studious as some of you.
Much appreciation for your site though.

Thank you again for your kindness

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Hippo on Mar 14th, 2007, 4:24pm
Hi I am male 37 years old, teaching math/cs on university at Prague.
I am interested especialy on puzzles requiring algorithmic thinking.
I have found this site when I was beating 3800 days barrier for 100 prisoners and a bulb problem and there was noone responding on our local forum ;)
Googling serves this as one of the best sources of alternative algorithms ;).

I learned math and cs mostly myself studiing simillar riddles (reinventing a lot of calculus at age of 16...). I recomend it ... most of serious probems are based on subproblems which can be formulated as riddles (not requiring high math). Of course university gived common terminology to my knowledge ...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on Mar 17th, 2007, 9:03pm
Hello all of those enjoying riddler's paradise.  Hippo's recent revival of the Who's Who topic reminded me that I never properly introduced myself.  As always, props to William, towr, and Icarus for keeping maintaining such a constant source of intellectual stimulation.

In the non-riddling world, people usually call me Matt.  I'm a 20 year old college student living in NYC and finishing up my third year of a five year program with a B.S. in Physics and a minor in Mathematics from NYU and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.

I found this site almost a year ago, worked my way through the riddles until I found the forum and immediately registered.  I've always been fond of riddles and started writing them I was in fourth or fifth grade.  Unfortunately, my classmates didn't share my enthusiasm and my interest in the subject was somewhat stunted until I was in college where I met people who also like to teach their brains to work in different ways.

Considering the recent Puzzle vs. Riddle (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_general;action=display;num=1171356827) topic, I would say that I am more interested in riddles than puzzles.  My interests tend towards linguistic riddles as I get more than enough math and science riddles during my classes.  I guess I find these word riddles much more relaxing since I rarely get to stretch that part of my brain.  I spend much of my free time playing sports, probably for the same reason.  I have an interest in linguistics which might also contribute to this.  I have always been quite interested in psychology as well.  I find myself analyzing situations in sports or life as if they were puzzles.  I've found it especially valuable to use the same thought process for analyzing a riddle to evaluate people's words and actions, especially for women.  ;-)

Anyways, thanks to everyone for making this such a great site.  The W forums are my cup of tea so I'd like to give a special shout out to the braniacs who keep them active.  You know who you are. ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by tiber13 on Apr 23rd, 2007, 2:50pm
Hi, im Tiber13, the guy who hovers around commenting at every movement.
My real Name is Christopher.
I am 11, turning 12 on July 18.
I live in [disclosed],Ontario, Canada
I am a genius, i took a IQ test and it is 117.
I am like any normal child.
I found this site at school, googled for a riddle forum, and registered 2 weeks afterword, And i have been bragging a bit that i talk to geniuses.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Apr 25th, 2007, 2:56am
Do geniuses always bragged about being a genius ? (I'm not a genius, so I wouldn't know  :P )


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by ThudanBlunder on Apr 25th, 2007, 4:01am

on 04/25/07 at 02:56:18, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Do geniuses always bragged about being a genius ?

Ones with IQs of 117 do.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by SMQ on Apr 25th, 2007, 5:43am
Aww, isn't that sweet: he's like any normal child. :D ;)


on 04/25/07 at 02:56:18, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Do geniuses always bragged about being a genius?

No.  Many (most?) prefer to let their work and/or their lives speak for them, rather than their score on a (somewhat arbitrary) test.  Which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with being proud of one's intelligence; just that it's only one measure among many of who a person is.

--SMQ

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Icarus on Apr 25th, 2007, 6:35pm

on 04/23/07 at 14:50:46, tiber13 wrote:
Hi, im Tiber13, the guy who hovers around commenting at every movement.
My real Name is Christopher.
I am 11, turning 12 on July 18.
I live in [disclosed],Ontario, Canada
I am a genius, i took a IQ test and it is 117.
I am like any normal child.
I found this site at school, googled for a riddle forum, and registered 2 weeks afterword, And i have been bragging a bit that i talk to geniuses.


I was afraid of this response. Tiber13, when I was 11, I too wanted to be considered a genius. And the result was similar to what you see here. People don't like braggarts, so when you start bragging about how smart you are, people want to take you down a notch. (Yes, I know, sports stars get away with it all the time. This is because of the fan factor. Unfortunately, intelligence doesn't attract fans.)

If you want people to respect your intelligence, don't tell people how smart you are. Instead, find ways to assist them in accomplishing what they want. What impresses people is usefulness, not intelligence.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Apr 25th, 2007, 7:13pm
Hey, I just did and online IQ test, and guess what, my IQ's 137. Does that me a genius, or just a bragging one ?  ;D

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by BNC on Apr 25th, 2007, 10:05pm

on 04/25/07 at 19:13:56, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Hey, I just did and online IQ test, and guess what, my IQ's 137. Does that me a genius, or just a bragging one ?  ;D


There is not a single definition of what "genius" means. Rahter, it is dependent on the type of test and interpretation.

See, for example, here (http://ask.yahoo.com/20031016.html):

Quote:
That depends on which IQ test you're taking. As Yahoo! Health notes, there are several methods that purport to measure intelligence, and all of them are controversial. They're prone to cultural bias and are fairly indefensible against the charge that all they really measure is test-taking ability.
That said, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test is the most common, and test scores usually range from 90 to 110. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard psychiatric reference, lists scores of 110 to 120 as "bright normal," 120 to 130 as "superior," and 130 and above as "very superior." One could reasonably equate "bright normal" with "smart," and "very superior" with "genius."


Another link (http://wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScoresMean.html)

Quote:
Lewis Terman (1916) developed the original notion of IQ and proposed this scale for classifying IQ scores:

Over 140 - Genius or near genius

120 - 140 - Very superior intelligence

110 - 119 - Superior intelligence

90 - 109 - Normal or average intelligence

80 - 89 - Dullness

70 - 79 - Borderline deficiency

Under 70 - Definite feeble-mindedness


High IQ & Genius IQ
Genius IQ is generally considered to begin around 140 to 145, representing ~.25% of the population (1 in 400).  Here's a rough guide:

115-124 - Above average (e.g., university students)
125-134 - Gifted (e.g., post-graduate students)
135-144 - Highly gifted (e.g., intellectuals)
145-154 - Genius (e.g., professors)
155-164 - Genius (e.g., Nobel Prize winners)
165-179 - High genius
180-200 - Highest genius
>200 - "Unmeasurable genius"


(personally, I can't take seriously anyone who equates education with intelligence).

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Noke Lieu on Apr 25th, 2007, 10:10pm

on 04/25/07 at 18:35:29, Icarus wrote:
If you want people to respect your intelligence, don't tell people how smart you are. Instead, find ways to assist them in accomplishing what they want. What impresses people is usefulness, not intelligence.


heh.
And when you start wondering how to get girls to like you, use this advice as a metaphor.  ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Apr 26th, 2007, 12:02am

on 04/25/07 at 22:10:05, Noke Lieu wrote:
heh.
And when you start wondering how to get girls to like you, use this advice as a metaphor.  ;)


From my experience, the more attractive the girl you're trying to get to like you, the lower your IQ became.  ;D

Back when I was first trying to talk to my wife, I'd say my IQ is roughly about 35.  :-[

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by SMQ on Apr 26th, 2007, 9:25am

on 04/25/07 at 18:35:29, Icarus wrote:
I was afraid of this response. [...] people want to take you down a notch.

Just for the record, that wasn't my intent -- if I came across as demeaning I apologize.  By all means, tiber13, continue to be proud of who you are and what you can do!  And more importantly, have fun with it!

But at the same time, try to remember the wisdom of Elwood P. Dowd and his mother (Harvey, 1950): "Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, 'In this world, Elwood, you must be' -- she always called me Elwood -- 'In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.' Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant."

I wish more people had told me both those things (have fun with who you are; but don't think that just being smart will win you many friends) when I was 11...

--SMQ

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by AllThatRemains on May 8th, 2007, 2:07pm
Jeremy Pendleton
17
Junior Highschool
Found site by googling riddles (  exact way i come here every time  ;D)
Its just amazing how intellegent people can become, ive been  reading forums here since around september 06 and just following along trying to understand everyones logic, which im not doing to well on that portion, but i won't give up :)
Genius>Me  :P
and can anyone suggest a good iq test site?

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by SMQ on May 8th, 2007, 4:20pm

on 05/08/07 at 14:07:04, AllThatRemains wrote:
can anyone suggest a good iq test site?

Understand that the results on online IQ tests are nowhere near as accurate or useful as professionally-administered, timed pencil-and-paper tests.  That said, for a quick test, this one (http://www.intelligencetest.com/) seems to be better than most; just be sure to put in your real age (you can put in a fake name and email if you want to be sure they won't spam you.)

--SMQ

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Barukh on Jul 30th, 2007, 8:28am
Anybody knows where's Icarus? His last post is dated Jun 6th...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Jul 30th, 2007, 10:20am
Hopefully it's just his work or something tying him up for a while.
Although rare, it wouldn't be the first time.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Sameer on Jul 30th, 2007, 10:55am

on 07/30/07 at 10:20:02, towr wrote:
Hopefully it's just his work or something tying him up for a while.
Although rare, it wouldn't be the first time.


Yea must be busy with a secret air plane!!!  ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Aug 1st, 2007, 6:43pm
Come to think of it, it's been quite some time since we last saw Icky. Hope nothing bad happened to him.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by xscapezaer on Aug 5th, 2007, 11:25am
I've been looking through the riddles on this site for a few months, but I've only just joined the forums.

I am 13 years old (am I one of the youngest ppl here?).

I think math, riddles, any combination of the two, and anything else related to them are awesome.

Oh, and I found this site because the site admin told me about it (heh, meaning that I know the site admin in real life)

And, while on the subject of IQ, I tried to model the the IQ curve with a gaussian distribution to calculate how many ppl there should be with certain IQ's, and I got that there are like 0.6 ppl in the world with IQ 200. But maybe I just calculated wrong...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Aug 5th, 2007, 12:07pm

on 08/05/07 at 11:25:52, xscapezaer wrote:
I've been looking through the riddles on this site for a few months, but I've only just joined the forums.
Well, welcome to the boards then!


Quote:
I am 13 years old (am I one of the youngest ppl here?).
The youngest I know of (but I don't know the ages of most people) was eleven; of course that was a few years back, probably :P



Quote:
And, while on the subject of IQ, I tried to model the the IQ curve with a gaussian distribution to calculate how many ppl there should be with certain IQ's, and I got that there are like 0.6 ppl in the world with IQ 200. But maybe I just calculated wrong...
It doesn't sound suspect; but of course it would be surprising if actual IQ measurements gave a perfect Gaussian curve.
And assuming a mean of 100 *, then there would also be 0.6 people with an IQ of 0

(*IQ tests need to be constantly recalibrated, the average is typically slightly over hundred, even though it should be 100 by definition; again reality proves a harsh mistress)


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 12th, 2007, 4:34am
Well my turn.

My real name is Michael (well der), and my cyberspace alias is mikedagr8( Other people use this but with a different spelling, although i did find a site with the same spelling)/DC1E2L. I am 15, currently completing year 10 at a private school in Melbourne. I have a full academic scholarship (so reading the previous posts would this classify as a "genius", i was the only one to recieve a full scholarship, out of 500 participants, of those only 4 others got a partial).I have represented Victoria in 2 different sports and have 2 part time jobs.

On to a more related topic, i will be completing specialist mathematics as a course in year 12. I currently do maths methods and business management as my final year courses.

On to an even more related topic, i find that i am able to cope and enjoy all the puzzles, but the ones i find most enjoyable are the worded/logic puzzles, not so much the mathematical ones.


Quote:
From my experience, the more attractive the girl you're trying to get to like you, the lower your IQ became.  


Also Jinbotak is correct from my experience.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Aug 12th, 2007, 5:30pm
Welcome mike, though it's been a while seems you've been here. Loosen up a bit on the tough talk though.  ;)

I just noticed SMQ & Grimby upgraded to moderators, congrats guys ! ( How long has it been anyway ?  :P )

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Sameer on Aug 12th, 2007, 10:48pm
Hmmm I just noticed something weird.. Grimbal "the newbie" is the mod and not Grimbal "the UberPuzzler"  ;)

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?action=viewprofile;username=Grimbal

and

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?action=viewprofile;username=grimbal

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 12th, 2007, 11:56pm
Yes i've now been here a month, and already posted 150+ posts. Although, i did post 40~ on my first day.

flamingdragon beat me though, he was averaging 40 every 12 hours or something :P

Also i make ambigrams. If you would like me to make one for you, just ask.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Aug 13th, 2007, 12:43am

on 08/12/07 at 22:48:10, Sameer wrote:
Hmmm I just noticed something weird.. Grimbal "the newbie" is the mod and not Grimbal "the UberPuzzler"  ;)

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?action=viewprofile;username=Grimbal

and

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?action=viewprofile;username=grimbal
I wonder if that was a conscious choice or a mistake on William's part.
It's not a bad idea to have a separate moderating account though; it prevents embarrassing mistakes where you modify someone's post instead of quoting it.


And we also have Eigenray as new mod in putnam, and Thud in hard.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Aug 13th, 2007, 1:31am

on 08/13/07 at 00:43:44, towr wrote:
And we also have Eigenray as new mod in putnam, and Thud in hard.


Good call on those !!  ;D

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Aug 13th, 2007, 3:49am
The assignment of moderators to boards isn't definite yet. William is just a bit worried that too many names under every board name is unwieldy and confusing.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 13th, 2007, 3:58am
True, i find have found it a little daunting when the mod names have gone over to the next line.

If your not having this problem, it must be my resolution.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 25th, 2007, 9:46pm
Hehe, I just took the IQ test that was recommended, and I did better on that then on the one I did when I was younger. Come to think of it, I did another when i was even younger. So averaging the results I got a 158. Hooray, I look smart.

And I just learnt how to solve a 2*2*2 Rubiks Cube (Pocket Cube) off by heart. I'll be able to do blindfolded pretty soon. It's a sweet party trick.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by ThudanBlunder on Sep 5th, 2007, 2:47pm

on 08/25/07 at 21:46:32, mikedagr8 wrote:
Hooray, I look smart.

Please recommend a good tailor.  

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by mikedagr8 on Sep 5th, 2007, 2:59pm
ROFL, I meant in the non-visual, act-cool-and-get-lucky approach, not my actual appearance. Although I do look nice in my school uniform. Off to school for me now.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by denis on Oct 6th, 2007, 11:42am
Well, I have been here close to 10 months without having properly introduced myself.

My first name is my handle (Denis). I am 47 years old from Ottawa, Canada. I graduated with a Bachelors In Mathematics (Applied Math) with a minor in Computer Science. Since graduation I work in the IT field in a University.

Obviously, I like the "what happened" riddles since I have a bit of success with them. I also like the math riddles but they usually get solved before I can figure them out.

Great site! Many thanks to all the mods and to William.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by gotit on Oct 6th, 2007, 1:47pm
Hi guys,
My name is Samrat Mitra and I am from India. I am 24 years old and a student of computer science in Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. I came to know about this site from my seniors, and I must say, this site is simply awesome. I am a regular visitor of the "what happened" and "cs" sections.

Thanks to William for this great site.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Ghost Sniper on Oct 10th, 2007, 11:40am
Ok. I've been here awhile and I haven't introduced myself yet, so I might as well do it now.

My name is Chris Song, and I was born in Tianjin, China. When I was about 7, I moved to Ottawa, Canada (Yes, where denis lives). Now, I live in Erie, Pennsylvania. I am 14 years old and currently a sophomore at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy. I plan to attend Carnegie Mellon (assuming I can get accepted) once I graduate from high school, and most likely major in CS and minor in piano. My favorite sections are the"What happened" and "truth" sections.  ;D

Well, the people here are nice, and I love a good challenge, although I can't solve most math riddles since I just started taking Precalc.  :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Iceman on Oct 16th, 2007, 6:00am

on 10/10/07 at 11:40:27, Ghost Sniper wrote:
I plan to attend Carnegie Mellon (assuming I can get accepted) once I graduate from high school, and most likely major in CS and minor in piano.

I used to play piano as well. :oNow I write riddles. So, are you happy, or unhappy, that I stopped playing the piano and start writing riddles? A tough one, eh? Perhaps not.   ::)  :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Ghost Sniper on Oct 16th, 2007, 2:57pm

on 10/16/07 at 06:00:06, Iceman wrote:
I used to play piano as well. :oNow I write riddles. So, are you happy, or unhappy, that I stopped playing the piano and start writing riddles? A tough one, eh? Perhaps not.   ::)  :P


Nice. I totally support your decision, since writing riddles is obviously your passion, but my passions are computers and piano, and I plan to use those two skills to feed me and my family someday.  :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Iceman on Nov 14th, 2007, 5:51am
Thanks for the support, which is mutual, even though riddles represent a nonprofit hobby of mine.  


on 04/16/06 at 22:36:47, pinkcat wrote:
Pleased to 'meet' you all ;)

If you want to meet me in person, or should I say, if you want to meet my meat, just send me a personal message, baby. I'll fly to Western Australia as Super-Penguin. There will be tender but brief foreplay. Then there will be long lasting sparks. There will be loud sounds and broken king-sized beds. And then, I will awake, see my mother, and realize that I was only dreaming. Aw..

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 1st, 2008, 9:34pm
I have been reminded to make a post here in the Who's Who section. I suppose I should have looked for one sooner and introduced myself, instead of just barging into your forum to answer riddles and be overwhelmed by the knowledge of mathematics that some have here.

So, I am Azgard (nah... really?) I am just finishing up a double honours major degree in Family Studies and Psychology, and hoping that sometime this month I will here from a teaching institute or two saying that they like me enough to let me in. My favourite course that I am in this year, however, is conceptual physics.

I am a fan of science fiction, especially of Stargate (both SG-1 and Atlantis) and StarTrek (pick a series, I probably like it).

I love camping and the outdoors, hiking, archery, and have crewed on balloons at a couple balloon festivals! I have worked at camps, and currently work (although not volunteer, too busy to do both) at Scouts Canada.

I came across this site while doing some research for a psychology study, and then spent the rest of the night here... I must admit, it is becoming quite an addiction... ;)

I particularly enjoy the "what happened" and "what am I" riddles, not being as advanced in math as appears to be a prerequisite for many of the riddles on the site.

You may be thinking to yourself that I have not yet mentioned my age or my sex. This is intentional. It is not a security measure, I merely thought it might be interesting to go a while here and see what people think of me not knowing my gender or age. Any guesses would be welcome, either public or IM. I will tell you that I am Canadian, from south western Ontario even. But that is all.

Glad to have met everyone and hope to have fun riddling for a long time!

Live long and prosper! :D

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 2nd, 2008, 1:15am

on 04/01/08 at 21:34:38, Azgard wrote:
I suppose I should have looked for one sooner and introduced myself, instead of just barging into your forum to answer riddles and be overwhelmed by the knowledge of mathematics that some have here.
I think I still haven't introduced myself; I've kept on barging for the last five and a half years ;)



Quote:
You may be thinking to yourself that I have not yet mentioned my age or my sex. This is intentional. It is not a security measure, I merely thought it might be interesting to go a while here and see what people think of me not knowing my gender or age. Any guesses would be welcome, either public or IM. I will tell you that I am Canadian, from south western Ontario even. But that is all.
Well, you're finishing up a degree, so that would put the expected age at around 22 or 23.
Guessing sex is trickier; because on the one hand the name, and the love for sci-fi suggests maleness with some probability, but on the other hand, if I take our own psychology department as representative, that suggests a high a priori probability of being female. I suppose we can chalk one more up for maleness from the rapid addiction to this site ;)
I suppose it could go either way; but my default assumption online is male unless the name suggests otherwise.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Apr 2nd, 2008, 2:08am

on 04/01/08 at 21:34:38, Azgard wrote:
I came across this site while doing some research for a psychology study, and then spent the rest of the night here... I must admit, it is becoming quite an addiction... ;)

Wait for a couple more years, the addiction would definitely intensify.  :P


on 04/01/08 at 21:34:38, Azgard wrote:
I particularly enjoy the "what happened" and "what am I" riddles, not being as advanced in math as appears to be a prerequisite for many of the riddles on the site.

Well, most of the time I can't understand a thing these guys are saying, that didn't stop me from yapping whenever I had the chance.  ;D


on 04/02/08 at 01:15:30, towr wrote:
I think I still haven't introduced myself; I've kept on barging for the last five and a half years ;)

No, you just uploaded your final year paper for us to browse through.  ::)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 2nd, 2008, 2:37am

on 04/02/08 at 02:08:43, JiNbOtAk wrote:
No, you just uploaded your final year paper for us to browse through.  ::)
Yeah, but not as an introduction; and it doesn't tell that much about me personally either.
The one I plan to finish this year should prove to be more interesting though. (Shorter too; since it's just a bachelor's thesis.)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by ima1trkpny on Apr 2nd, 2008, 7:57am

on 04/02/08 at 01:15:30, towr wrote:
I suppose we can chalk one more up for maleness from the rapid addiction to this site ;)


uh huh... then what exactly does that make me? ::)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 2nd, 2008, 8:23am

on 04/02/08 at 07:57:46, ima1trkpny wrote:
uh huh... then what exactly does that make me? ::)
Exceptional ;)
It's just folk-statistics; men are more likely to have an addictive personality* than women. That doesn't in the slightest imply that no women have addictive personalities; just that the proportions are skewed.
If I knew Azgard to have long hair, I'd add a point to the female-hypothesis; even though I know quite a few guys with long hair as well. It's just that there's an overwhelming number of long-haired women in comparison.


*) in the sense of being prone to get addicted; not the sense of having people get addicted to their personality (I don't know either way about the latter.)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by ima1trkpny on Apr 2nd, 2008, 12:46pm

on 04/02/08 at 08:23:06, towr wrote:
Exceptional ;)

Oh... nice save 8)
I was just teasing you, Towr... I know what you meant and all we have to do is look at the composition of regular forum posters we have here. As for myself, it's kind of fun being a minority in certain circumstances ;) There are lots of benefits too as men tend to be less dramatic (usually) and what woman doesn't like being surrounded by guys? ::)

Ok, and since I'm guilt tripping a bit about not having added anything to Who's Who... here goes:
I've always had fun with riddles, word puzzles, and especially cryptograms whenever I come across them so that's how I ended up finding this site (thank you google)
Outside this forum I have a rather diverse range of interests (really too many to list... much faster to list what I don't like) and enjoy reading, listening to music, sports, my equestrian pursuits, etc. For work, I'm an engineer with emphasis being on hydrodynamics and propulsion but I tend to dabble in lots of things.
Native Californian, 5'9" blonde with blue eyes and age somewhere between mikey and Sameer.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 2nd, 2008, 7:27pm

on 04/02/08 at 01:15:30, towr wrote:
Well, you're finishing up a degree, so that would put the expected age at around 22 or 23.


There are many mature students in my field, being in university does not necessarily mean that I have come straight from high school.


on 04/02/08 at 01:15:30, towr wrote:
I suppose it could go either way; but my default assumption online is male unless the name suggests otherwise.


The name is a borrowed and personalized version of a highly advanced species known as the Asguard. They are benevolent, allies of Earth, and so highly advanced that they clone themselves and insert their minds into their new bodies instead of reproducing the old fashion way like we still do here on earth. The Asguard are asexual.

I could ramble on for a while about the Asguard and anything else Stargate related, but I will stop myself here and go post a new riddle in the what am I section.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 2nd, 2008, 11:29pm

on 04/02/08 at 19:27:08, Azgard wrote:
There are many mature students in my field, being in university does not necessarily mean that I have come straight from high school.
It's a matter of probability, not necessity. I know students over the age of 50; there's actually quite a few in our philosophy department, but most are considerably younger. And on the other hand there's always that small change you're an utter genius and entered university at 12.


Quote:
The name is a borrowed and personalized version of a highly advanced species known as the Asguard.
I know; and the name is taken from Norse mythology, where it's the homeland of the Aesir (the norse gods). (I'm sure you've noticed stargate involves a lot of mythology; although it's a bit disappointing nearly all pantheons are hi-jacked by the goa'uld, and only the norse are a different race).
I wish they hadn't stopped airing it here.
In any case, it doesn't change the fact it sounds more male than female to me; at best it would be neutral.


Quote:
and so highly advanced that they clone themselves and insert their minds into their new bodies instead of reproducing the old fashion way
And we've seen how well that works out; cellular degradation due to recloning threatens the survival of their race. :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 3rd, 2008, 6:50am

on 04/02/08 at 23:29:15, towr wrote:
And on the other hand there's always that small change you're an utter genius and entered university at 12.


True, but do I sound like a genius to you? :P


on 04/02/08 at 23:29:15, towr
wrote
:
I wish they hadn't stopped airing it here.


I know the Stargate SG-1 series is over, but they don't even run the reruns for you? How do you survive?


on 04/02/08 at 23:29:15, towr
wrote
:
And we've seen how well that works out; cellular degradation due to recloning threatens the survival of their race. :P


Actually, it is because of the recloning that has gone on for such a long time on the Asgard homeworld that they are now extinct. They blew themselves up to so they could go out on their own terms.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 3rd, 2008, 7:16am

on 04/03/08 at 06:50:14, Azgard wrote:
I know the Stargate SG-1 series is over, but they don't even run the reruns for you?
I haven't even seen the last season of it.
For some obscure reason they stopped airing any sci-fi at all. No battlestar galactica anymore either. It's pretty dead on the TV front here overall, to be honest.

Hmm, well, Dr Who's starting up at the BBC again this saturday, if I'm not mistaken, so that should be good. Good thing we get foreign channels here, because apparently we can't count on our own broadcasting groups.


Quote:
How do you survive?
Lots of anime and webcomics ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Master of Everything 42 on Apr 3rd, 2008, 5:47pm
Ive decided to give a picture of me( or tried)
http://www.blizzard.net/images/battle/diablo2exp/images/animations/bestiary/act5/baalminion-opt.gif
and i read what you said.

but no one cares anymore.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 5th, 2008, 5:00pm

on 04/03/08 at 07:16:57, towr wrote:
Lots of anime and webcomics ;)


Have you ever tried Garfield minus Garfield?  :D Do a search on it, it's hilarious watching John the depressed schizophrenic!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 6th, 2008, 7:11am

on 04/05/08 at 17:00:13, Azgard wrote:
Have you ever tried Garfield minus Garfield?  :D Do a search on it, it's hilarious watching John the depressed schizophrenic!
I've seen it; I don't think I've bookmarked it though. It's fun as a gimmick, but it hasn't held my interest.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 6th, 2008, 7:16am

Quote:
Some people are average, some are just mean


I like it, towr! I just noticed and read it, and I like it!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 6th, 2008, 7:33am

on 04/06/08 at 07:16:43, Azgard wrote:
I like it, towr! I just noticed and read it, and I like it!
Hmm, now I'm wondering if it sounds better if I'd include 'just', like you did  :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 6th, 2008, 7:36am
Woops, I did not intend to modify it...  :-[

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Apr 6th, 2008, 8:02am
Well, that's just how memory works. It remembers what it 'thinks' was supposed to be there.
It might work better with the 'just' there. Certainly it'd work better if you told someone "I used to think you were average; but you're just mean" than without the 'just' (not that there are a lot of good opportunities to use such a sentence in the first place; but that just increases the incentive not to botch it).

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Azgard on Apr 6th, 2008, 5:32pm
I am noticing now, as I adapt and begin to integrate myself into this forum, that it appears to be a standard practice not to reveal a persons age in their profile, and not something special or interesting as I had thought it might be when I purposely left it for others to guess at...

Oh well...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by 0.999... on Jun 30th, 2008, 6:26pm
2 Months later...

Hello, I'm new here as I joined yesterday. Recently, I had found and added-on the firefox add-on called StumbleUpon. Since I enjoy programming, puzzles, and mathematics, I had my initial stumble settings set to those three things while I spent a couple of days opening my mind to the vast size of the internet.

Yesterday, I had Stumbled upon the introduction page of this site. I had completed the first couple riddles linked from that page and joined the forum index.

After recovering from an utter shock at the intellectual abilities of the general poster population here, I came to this topic to type these very words.

So, I'm a freshman in high school. I enjoy being that computer geek in the corner of the room and eating lunch with the others who are proud of being outcasts. With so much free time due to not participating in activities for those who are cool, I have taught myself first year calculus, or at least tried. I think I have learned what is necessary to pass a first year calc test, but I'll never know until I see how much I don't know. It's bliss right now at least. :D

In addition, I've programmed in Java and C++ for a couple of years. I've only worked hard at it this summer though--that is, I've finished my first programming book this summer and I'm starting another. I've programmed trivial programs such as a Punnet Square generator which applies the things I learned in Biogenetics class and writes to a file the punnet square from user input (such as, user: AaBbCcDd X AaBbCcDd), the phenotype ratio, and the genotype ratio of the various possible offspring. It maxes out at 6 traits being crossed due to my algorithm not being that great.

I expect to enjoy sitting around reading others' solutions to the riddles as I don't think I have enough training in the required departments to provide sound solutions promptly. I know that in the single day I've been at these forums, I enjoyed reading the posts here.


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by SMQ on Jul 1st, 2008, 5:02am
Hey, an actual participant, and apparently neither an egotist/troll nor shilling for crappy websites with your sig! ;)  Welcome!

--SMQ

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by ThudanBlunder on Jul 1st, 2008, 5:36am

on 07/01/08 at 05:02:12, SMQ wrote:
Hey, an actual participant, and apparently neither an egotist/troll nor shilling for crappy websites with your sig! ;)

Maybe 0.999... is The One.   :o  I guess we'll never know for sure..........  ;)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by FiBsTeR on Jul 2nd, 2008, 7:52am

on 06/30/08 at 18:26:41, 0.999... wrote:
So, I'm a freshman in high school. I enjoy being that computer geek in the corner of the room and eating lunch with the others who are proud of being outcasts. With so much free time due to not participating in activities for those who are cool, I have taught myself first year calculus, or at least tried. I think I have learned what is necessary to pass a first year calc test, but I'll never know until I see how much I don't know. It's bliss right now at least. :D


Hey, you sound like me two years ago!

If you're into math and problem solving, you might also find the Art of Problem Solving (http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/) (AoPS) community to be interesting as well, if you haven't heard of it. Also, if you aren't already, you might want to get involved in the American Mathematics Competitions (http://www.unl.edu/amc/whatswhat.shtml) (AMCs), which are national math contests for high school students. Both AoPS and the AMCs are things I wish I knew about as a freshman, so maybe they'll be of use to you.

The good thing about the AMCs is that they test math before calculus; the competition consists of three levels: the AMC, the AIME, and the USAMO (more details in the link above). Here are some example problems to give you an idea of the types of problems on these tests:

---
AMC: A circle of radius r is concentric with and outside a regular hexagon of side length 2. The probability that three entire sides of hexagon are visible from a randomly chosen point on the circle is 1/2. What is r? (2006)

AIME: Consider sequences that consist entirely of A's and B's and that have the property that every run of consecutive A's has even length, and every run of consecutive B's has odd length. Examples of such sequences are AA, B, and AABAA, while BBAB is not such a sequence. How many such sequences have length 14? (2008)

USAMO: At a certain mathematical conference, every pair of mathematicians are either friends or strangers. At mealtime, every participant eats in one of two large dining rooms. Each mathematician insists upon eating in a room which contains an even number of his or her friends. Prove that the number of ways that the mathematicians may be split between the two rooms is a power of two (i.e., is of the form 2k for some positive integer k). (2008)
---

One last thing: the United States Mathematical Talent Search (http://www.usamts.org/) (USAMTS) is another way to practice problem solving skills (and receive prizes for them) in a competitive environment. Here's a sample:

---
USAMTS: For how many integers n between 1 and 102007, inclusive, are the last 2007 digits of n and n3 the same? (If n or n3 has fewer than 2007 digits, treat it as if it had zeros on the left to compare the last 2007 digits.) (2006-7)
---

You'll find that a lot of AMC and USAMTS problems get posted around here. Good luck in your high school math career!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by 1337b4k4 on Oct 9th, 2008, 2:09am
My name is Prateek, I'm 22, and I was an EECS/Math major at Berkeley that graduated in 2007. I joined a few months ago because a friend (I don't know if she ever registered) knew I collected puzzles and pointed me to this site. I must say that this site/forum is by far the best resource and community I've found on problem solving :)

I've been working for a start up company that some of my friends started since graduation, but plan to leave that behind and get a PhD from Georgia Tech in CS theory (ACO program for those familiar with it) I will be starting next year in Fall 09, and am extremely excited by it! (Work, even at a start up company, can get a little meh).

As an undergrad, I greatly enjoyed tutoring/teaching at the Student Learning Center at the UCB campus, and education and teaching are important to me. I continue to tutor there in my mornings while working at the start up company, thanks to start ups having pretty flexible hours :)

My future goals are: (in decreasing realistic order)
1. Get an Erdos number of 2
2. Become a professor in CS, one of those that students actually learn from because they are good educators on top of being good thinkers
3. Not have to worry about money and live a life of fulfillment because my start-up company stock will eventually become not-worthless. (This is a long shot :/, especially with the current US economy)
4. Have a Theorem or Algorithm named after me

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by iono on Oct 10th, 2008, 6:13pm
15/m/SF,CA ;D


I'm just a high school student, and a smart one, but definitely not the smartest guy here. I was looking for riddles online, went to the riddles site, and then to the forums, and yeah

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Oct 10th, 2008, 8:48pm

on 10/10/08 at 18:13:17, iono wrote:
..a smart one, but definitely not the smartest guy here.


Yeah, we get that a lot.  ;D Welcome iono (though it's been quite a while)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by singh_sukhu on Sep 26th, 2009, 5:41am
I finally decided to post here after being a silent onlooker for almost 2 years now.

Right now I am 22, doing my computer science degree from a college so lame that it is called 'CAREER Institute of technology and Management', Faridabad, India.

The reason why I dont post much around here is coz this forum depresses me. I feel I am old and despite being in the compsc field i know nothing as compared to the guys here...It was a mistake to get in a lame college (and the killing fact is that i can't quit. why?..read on) wherein my mental level has degraded over past 3 years.

First i would like to give a brief about some of Indian Examinations pertaining to maths and engg.
NTSE(national Talent search exam) is one held by the indian govt annually wherein 300 students from 10th class are selected to receive scholarship throughout their academic career(till doctorate!). The competition faced can be guessed from the fact that their are around 2 million people appearing in 10th class every year in India.

IIT(Indian Institute of Technology) hold JEE(a test testing pre-college maths,physics,chemistry) for selection into these premier engineering govt colleges. they are among the world's best colleges and the number of candidates competing per seat is around 250. Students aspiring to be engineers appear after they complete their 12th class.

Now my story is that I cleared NTSE. I was confident and decided to prepare for IITs. however i couldn't get in :'((and you get only one try). I got into this college in a hope to be a computer engineer.
Rather I think I have f*cked myself up. I now have very little knowledge of programming and maths(which i aspired to gain...but could not coz i was required to make stupid projects...and endless exams). Anyways I think i will drop out very soon or I would start to learn. Currently I am determined to learn, and so i m starting with data structures and algorithms...

This forum has so many great brains and I hope to gain from their knowledge...


Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Sep 29th, 2009, 5:03am
Cheer up man, you're just 22, life is barely beginning. And if you're really interested in programming and maths, it's not that difficult to learn it on your own. Come to think of it, some of the experts we have here are self taught.

Others are just born that way. (Seriously, could you guys imagine a 5th grade Eigenray learning how to factorise quadratic equations ? :P )

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rasagna on Apr 16th, 2010, 3:46am
Hi,

I am Venkat Rasagna from Hyderabad .. I am currently doing
masters in comp science in IIIT-Hyderabad.  I have known this
site through my friend Maruti.
I hope this site will be useful for me.

Have fun .. enjoy

-- Venkat Rasagna

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by psofttech on Aug 9th, 2010, 7:07am
Hello,

I'm Chintan and I found this site very much interesting. I'm glad to be a part of this website. Thank you.

I found interesting questions and they are technically strong,

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by guptaharsh18890 on Dec 28th, 2011, 10:59pm
hi,my name ia harsh.i am a student of MIT(india).i found this site through google search engine.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by alien2 on Jan 2nd, 2012, 12:36pm
Here’s a picture of mine when I was a kid living in London with my parents. I’m not sure why but it makes me laugh. I can’t believe that was me.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jan 8th, 2012, 9:09pm
You're right, I can't believe that's you either. I always thought you'd look something like this.

http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/51000/Baby-alien--51377.jpg

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by alien2 on Jan 9th, 2012, 6:21am
Some aliens take on the appearance of human beings. :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by EEGBrainTrainer on Jan 22nd, 2012, 5:19pm

on 10/04/02 at 18:21:19, Carl_Cox wrote:
As I've mentioned in other posts, I'm interested in finding out who's participating in this site, and what they get out of this site.  Any and all details are welcome.

So, for starters, I'm Carl Cox, a CSMS student at Georgia Tech.  I found this site several months ago (no, not from the slashdot site) when a friend of mind asked me the infamous 100 prisoner riddle.  I took a day, got a (not great) answer, took another day, got the better answer (which appears to be the best answer so far).  Then I asked him where he found it.  He directed me to this site, and I've been off and on again since.  

Before this, I collected classic riddles.  My sophomore year, I would stick a riddle on my door, titled "Riddle of the Day"  People would write their answers and slide the paper under my door; the first person with the right answer got credit on the next Riddle of the Day.  It became quite a thing in the hall; people were amazingly competitive.  Some people, having won, would ask for the prize.  This lead to the creating of the Riddle Rules, which you can read at
www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte711e/riddles
People told me they liked the riddle rules, so you guys might also.

Anyhow, all that ended when I moved from the hall, but I kept the riddles and created a "Random Riddle Generator" on my home page (which, unfortunalty, isn't available right now, though I can get you the riddles if you're interested).

More recently, I have enrolled in a course entitiled Online Communities, in which we discuss design decisions of online communities, and how they effect the community itself.  We talked about LamdaMOO, MediaMOO, Habitat (on the ol' commodore 64), ebay, IRC, ICQ, chatrooms, Ultima Online, etc. etc. etc.  For a midterm project, we are required to participate in an online community, and I thought of this one.  I emailed the talented Wu about it, and he was excited, and so I've been interacting since.  I might add that I've been thoroughly enjoying the problem solving process, too.  But it occured to me that noone seems to know much about each other.  And I want to know.

SOOO, if you're interested, follow up to this post with your story!  I'm all ears!  Or fingers, since we're online.

carl


I would be very interested in your riddle collection!

I introduced myself on another page already, but here's a recap.

I'm a neurofeedback therapist and I'm always looking for ways to help my clients exercise their brains between sessions.  I found this site today while searching for ideas.

My clients range in age from kids to the elderly, so I need a wide range of challenge levels.  I have been looking at old kid's riddle books, but haven't come up with much that hasn't been heard over and over.

If anyone has suggestions, I'd be grateful.  So far this site looks like a goldmine for me!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by chrysanthy on Feb 12th, 2012, 9:52pm
chrys
26
editor
like gardening,drawing,singing and dancing
riddle is riddle

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by arun gupta on Apr 11th, 2012, 2:36am
Simply say.... I Am What I Am  8)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Santorini Hotel on Jun 4th, 2012, 5:54am
a puzzle and riddle enthusiast from Santorini :) who also likes Math.

// remove irrelevant/spammy link --towr

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by alien2 on Jun 4th, 2012, 6:24am

on 04/11/12 at 02:36:23, arun gupta wrote:
Simply say.... I Am What I Am  8)

Tuvok: "I am who I am, Mr. Neelix. It is impossible for me to be more or less like myself."

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Justine Muller on Jun 25th, 2012, 2:57am
Hi i am Justine Muller. I am a CPAP provider. And i am doing this work last five years.

Title: Myself intro...
Post by alexclair on Jul 17th, 2012, 5:30am
Hi all my friends I am a new user for this forum.

Myself Alexclair. I am from steamlite sales ltd. stayed in india.
Steamlite sells products of electronic cigarette.
Steamlite has one more product online is e liquid.

You can get more information from e liquid.

Please give me reply how you feel about this products and my post.

::)

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by littlemisschic on Jul 26th, 2012, 10:07pm
I love Riddles....the whole reason i Joined this forum it's good fun and gets you thinking.

Love to debate the answer with other members as sometimes discussing it helps the answer come along!!

Love the Forums Guys!
keep up the good work

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by atyq on Aug 10th, 2012, 1:00am
Like everybody, I am who I am.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by thomamat68W on Jul 4th, 2013, 11:20pm
I am Matthew Thomas.  I have always liked riddles and started writing my own about a year ago.  I post my better ones to this forum for others to read and enjoy.  I mostly stick to the "What am I?" section because, well they are the easiest to write.  I still have a few unsolved ones posted so feel free to take a crack at them.  

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by alien2 on Sep 17th, 2013, 10:42am
Who is Nobody? :P

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Nobody on Sep 18th, 2013, 8:21am
Nobody knows the answer.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rmsgrey on Sep 19th, 2013, 8:50am

on 09/17/13 at 10:42:10, alien2 wrote:
Who is Nobody? :P


I dunno, but I hear he's a bad houseguest...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Sep 19th, 2013, 10:11am
Really? I heard he was perfect.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by webtasarim on Oct 6th, 2013, 10:10am
hi im goktug from istanbul turkey.im computer engineer. im glad to meet all. .

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by isha.lovie on Jan 9th, 2014, 6:50am
Hello friends, Myself Isha Jain, 20 years Female from Shimla, Himachal pradesh, India. I am basically from Chandigarh but now settled down to Shimla for a long time. I have done my schooling from St. Thomas’ School Shimla and now pursuing BCA from St. Bede college, Shimla. I have been running a website updatemasti-dot-com for a long time ever since I have left my home town.

neutralized URL - Grimbal

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by movie4fun on Aug 18th, 2014, 6:49pm
I am James. software Engineer. Living in CA. Found this forum through google.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by wakiza33 on Sep 25th, 2014, 12:34pm
James.

Metal Stamping Engineer, Berkeley Alumnus.

3d printing geek!

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Sep 26th, 2014, 1:52am

on 09/25/14 at 12:34:36, wakiza33 wrote:
3d printing geek!
Y'know, I've always wanted to try 3d-printing, but I can't for the life of me think of what I'd want to print.
I suppose I could just print parts for a 3d printer (I think RepRap has plans for that), but that seems awfully recursive.

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by Grimbal on Sep 26th, 2014, 7:02am
Yeah, and imagine it runs out of control.  Printers printing printers that start printing other printers...

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rloginunix on Oct 25th, 2016, 6:21pm
Nice: assuming that in one unit of time each printer (atomically) prints a printer which, in one unit of time, prints a printer, which ... and initially we start with just one such printer then what function will describe the total number of fully functional printers after t units of time have elapsed?

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by towr on Oct 25th, 2016, 10:30pm
Sounds like rabbits... [hide]fibonacci[/hide]

Title: Re: Who's who?
Post by rmsgrey on Oct 26th, 2016, 10:41am

on 10/25/16 at 22:30:56, towr wrote:
Sounds like rabbits... [hide]fibonacci[/hide]


Only if there's lag between a printer being printed and becoming operational. If a freshly printed printer can print a new printer immediately, then you're looking at bacteria rather than rabbits [hide]exponential - specifically 2t[/hide]



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