NewSc2

Been a while since I tried to work out a riddle. I came across this one on a site, which said I would get some, $200 worth of clams if I solved it and sent the answer in, without Googling. Of course there was no e-mail address. Interesting blog, though, some of those recipes look good. (seedmore.org)

Anyway, here’s the riddle, and below the spacer is my thought process to come up with the answer. Took about 10 minutes.

RIDDLE

Rick is a strange liar. He lies on six days of the week, but on the seventh day he always tells the truth. He made the following statmenets on three successive days:

Day 1: “I lie on Monday and Tuesday”
Day 2: “Today, it’s Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday.”
Day 3: “I lie on Wednesday and Friday.”

The questions: On which day does Rick tell the truth?

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Okay, here’s where I’d usually do the “click Next to find the answer!” but I don’t use that formatting for this blog, and I’m not quite sure how to add it to just this post. Anyway, the riddle is solvable, so if you’re feeling nerdy, write it up and don’t look below.

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“Thought Process for Solving Riddle”

Let’s figure this out.

Rick only tells the truth 1 day out of the week. That either means a) all 3 of the statements are lies, or b) one of the statements is true. (so b1, b2, b3)

Break down a). All are lies.

Many ways to read these statements. The wrong way would be to construe the first statement, “I lie on Monday and Tuesday”, as “I lie on Wed-Sun”.

Specifically, lying about “I lie on Monday and Tuesday” would mean that he tells the truth on Monday or Tuesday. Hm, well what about Day 3 then? “I lie on Wednesday and Friday” Doesn’t one of those two have to be true?

For simplicity’s sake, let’s just go with that. Day 1 or 3 is true, the other one is a lie. And Day 2 has to be a lie.

We’ll go onto b).

Day 1 — Truth or Lie
Day 2 — Lie
Day 3 — Truth or Lie (opposite of 1)

Day 2 = Lie means that Day 2 is either Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.

Scenario 1: Truth Day is Day 1, which is a Sunday.

If Day 2 were Monday, Day 1 would be Sunday, and Day 3 would be Tuesday. Let’s break it down into Day 1/3. Day 1 = Lie (that means he tells the truth on either Monday or Tuesday). Day 3 = Truth (Wednesday and Friday are both out). Then Monday/Tuesday can’t be truth days, because there would be 2 truth days. (Wrong)

Scenario 2: Truth Day is Day 1, which is a Monday.

Day 2 = Tuesday, Day 3 = Wednesday. Only 1 Truth day, Monday, so Tuesday and Wednesday are lie-days. This can’t happen, because Day 3 truth = Wednesday and Friday lies. (Wrong)

Scenario 3: Truth Day is Day 1, Tuesday.

Day 2 = Wednesday, Day 3 = Thursday. Yet again, Truth day cannot be Tuesday because that would go against Day 3’s statement (Wednesday and Friday have to be truth days). Seeing a pattern here, but it’s late so I’ll continue.

Scenario 4: Truth Day is Day 1, Thursday.

Day 2 = Friday. Again, Day 3 annuls this point, because Wed/Fri are both lies. Onto the next set of 4 scenarios.

Scenario 5: Truth Day is Day 3, Tuesday.

Day 2 = Monday, Day 1 = Sunday. Huh, I’m confused. If truth day is Tuesday, then why didn’t the first scenario work out? Well.. the dates were wrong I guess.. oh well let’s just trudge on.

Scenario 6: Truth Day is Day 3, Wednesday.

Day 2 = Tuesday, Day 1 = Monday. Doesn’t work because if Truth Day were Wednesday it’d annul point 3. He can’t lie on Wednesday Day 3

Scenario 7: Truth Day is Day 3, Thursday.

Day 1 = Tuesday, Day 2 = Wednesday. Day 1 Tuesday = lie doesn’t work, because the lie is on Thursday, not Mon/Tues.

Scenario 8: Truth Day is Day 3, Saturday.

Day 1 = Thursday, Day 2 = Friday. Again, doesn’t work, because if Day 1 were a lie, then Monday or Tuesday would have to be a truth day.

So I’m going to conclude with Tuesday. I’m not sure why the first run around didn’t conclude Tuesday, but it works as so:

Day 1 (Sunday): I lie on Monday or Tuesday — LIE (he tells the truth on Tuesday)
Day 2 (Monday): Today it’s either Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday — LIE (it’s Monday)
Day 3 (Tuesday): I lie on Wednesday and Friday — TRUTH (he does lie on Wed/Fri).

Hope this is correct, going to google it.

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Yay, I’m right!

I missed writing papers for school, so sometimes I spend a few hours to put together some thoughts and brush up on my skills. This was one of those examples.

Should Governments (or Society) take over distribution of knowledge? (The Future of Open-Source)

The problem of piracy is rampant today. We’re slowly, but clearly, moving to an age where information and tools of creativity are clearly being freely redistributed, whether by piracy or open source.

Is this such a bad thing? Is the world a better place because of piracy? Are we giving the less privileged a chance to compete and add to the overall good?

So why shouldn’t governments take over piracy? Many people are already stealing programs like Photoshop, Ableton Live, Final Cut Pro, etc. If each of these companies were paid a reasonable $25 for each program, instead of the $1000 they charge, they would probably make about the same amount of money.

Let’s tax the consumer for the benefit of the overall society. A free, sponsored version of Photoshop or Logic Pro would allow more people to access a music making program and therefore raise society’s artistic level. Let’s do the same for books, education, and entertainment.

Things like YouTube, blogs, and online newspapers have taken traditionally paid material and given them away for free.

Take Bill Simmons, for example. People can read his works for free on ESPN.com. Simmons gets paid, ESPN gets some residual advertising money, and we all laugh and get some enjoyment. This is a perfect triangle of distribution, but it doesn’t always work this way. Simmons just got lucky picking the right style of entertainment/art to pursue. There really is no current model like that for music, and musicians work just as hard, and are as talented as our best bloggers.

In a perfect world, the government could hire or contract out artists and computer programmers to commission these tools and vices for the general masses. This would all be for the greater good of society. I know I sound like a communist now, but just hold the thought for a second.

It’s obvious that human society has never really anticipated this sort of free distribution of goods on such a mass scale. The cassette tape has been around for 50 some odd years, and paintings can get photographed and shown, or displayed in a book. But digital information has revolutionized our economics.

This can only continue. More and more information will be available through the collective mind (the internet). More movies will be made open source and hosted on YouTube, more internet comics will appear, bypassing newspapers, and more books, lectures, voice communication (phones), and more photos will be hosted. But how do these people make money? They make money by hosting little text-based ads that clutter the consumer’s experience, and by packing T-shirts and posters for fans and shipping them out.

Technology is advancing faster than ever. We’ve finally reached the point where human’s collective information is available from the palm of our hands, and soon enough it will be even more accessible, in ways we can barely imagine. Cybernetic technology is in the future, and when this happens, there really will be no point for many of the “necessary” purchases we make today. Full industries will shrink, from record labels to printing presses and more. I’m not predicting that we’ll all be riding Segways and products will be delivered in vacuum tubes, but industries have fallen before, and they will again.

When technology and information converge on this point, how will we handle money? We each will be pitching in to the collective pot, adding to the “open source.” But new entities, like governments, will probably rise to ensure our internets will prosper.

I need to figure out how to end this… I should read and cite some sources, too.

So. Fucking. Awesome.

Checking my e-mail has suddenly become a lot more epic. I feel like legendary sci-fi music should be playing in the background.

Five Dollar Footloooooooonnnngg…

I hate you, referee. I hate you, hula dancers. I hate you, Mo-Town dancers.

And most of all, I hate you Subway. The jingle is catchy, I’ll give you that, but it’s really really annoying. Almost as annoying as the “Saaaaved byyyyy the zeeeroooooo” Toyota commercials.

Inspiration:

Perspiration:

The day where girls have an excuse to dress slutty.

not that i’m complaining…

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

I think it was Vonnegut who said something about not using cliches or common sayings while writing. Oh well… when in Rome…

The Apple “Let’s Rock!” event came and went today, and new iPods were introduced across the line. Which is cool — my Nike+iPod just refuses to work with my old iPod nano, so I’ve been thinking about an upgrade. But the iPod refresh just made my decision all the more difficult… the new iPod touch comes with a built-in Nike+ receiver… Considering I already have an iPhone, having something so similar is overkill, but the Nike+ receiver is one more thing I need to latch onto the iPod nano… and do I really need a new iPod? Nah..

Anyway, the Apple site has a really pretty picture of the iPod nanos:

Of course, I’d just finished the latest Taccia catalog sheets, and well, I sort of noticed some similarities:

I’m still impressed by the sheet I did, though. If I told myself 3 years ago that I’d be making catalog sheets that look vaguely similar to what Apple’s front page looks like, I’d.. I’d cream my pants be very happy.

I really wish I could enjoy all types of music, but sometimes, I just can’t. It’s like asking myself to enjoy Coors Light.

From Dustinland.

0 visitors total since I started keeping track last week

Edit (6/27/08): It turns out I just didn’t install the WordPress Stats plugin correctly. I’m getting about a dozen visitors per day now.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to categorize blog posts into sub-pages. Unsuccessfully. Probably due to procrastination, or stupidity. Or too much beer.

Either way, my goal is to have this blog sorted out where all posts are hosted on the main page, but categorized into sub-pages (beer, food, music, pictures, funny, cute, etc.). I guess I gots me some learnin’ to do before I figure it all out.

Regardless, stay tuned, folks. Before you know it*, this place will be teeming with content and knowledge.

*It might help if you down a beer or three while you wait.