There is ambiguity in "shared equally".

Stranger shared equally with James.
Stranger shared equally with William.
It does not follow that James, William and Stranger shared equally with each other.

Infi - nice work on the letters - I "got it" once I saw your post.

Regarding nut #40:
The discrepancy arises because you can't buy 12 cents worth of apples from the lady who sells them at three for a cent, because she only has 30 apples which is 10 cents worth.
You have to buy 10 cents worth from her and 15 cents worth from the lady who charges 1 cent per two apples. The greedy bitch.

I think it is stretching it to call it a loss, though.

Profligate.

As I recall there was a shortfall recently at your Uni, was there not?

Coincidence?

Nut Nazi!:D

Some of the "answers" are as difficult as the questions.

Agreed. Hence "Mental Nuts" and not "Mental Taking Candy From a Baby"
;)

Have you ever actually tried taking candy from a baby? WWIII, man.

It's all about distraction.

"OOH look! a backhoe!" (boy)
"OOH look! a horse!" (girl)

There was orange juice in the cupboard!

WW11

I'm sorry, did I get off track?

Waiting for an answer to the cost of the suit.

Focus, people, FOCUS!

Here is today's nut:

What is 1-6? Don't get that part.

Yeah, neither do I and I have the answer key. I was hoping one of you smarty-pantses would know.:o

I'm looking at the answers and it seems that there is a typo in the question. It should read 1/6 (C+P)

#42 - it's like binary!

1/6?

Not having 1/6 available on the type?

What does "the Coat costs as much as P and V" mean? It's equal to the sum of those two, or all three are equal to one another?

They can't be all three equal to one another. I'd say the coat costs as much as pants plus vest.

Jesus Christ, you people.

C=P+V
P= .5* (C+V)
V= 1/6 (C+P)

:(

that's what I said.

Oh...you said PEOPLE.

He means me.

I'm being intentionally obtuse. :p:

No need, glatt. There is plenty of obtuse around here. The place is lousy with obtuse. ;)

should have read:

C=P+V
P= .5* (C+V)
V= 1/6 (C+P) + 1.25

Attachment 36637

Attachment 36638

Right V,
Right Glatt,
Right Infi

#42 Weights = 1/2, 1+1/2, 4+1/2, 13+1/2

Score, please.

I just realized, the key is that you can put a weight on the opposite side of the scale. So if I want to weigh out one pound of green beans, I put the 1-1/2 on one side, the 1/2 on the other side, and add green beans until it balances. Very clever.

I was wondering if I had to specify a balance scale as opposed to a spring scale.

Very Clever...

Notice that if you changed it to whole numbers (1 to 40 pounds) the weights would be 1, 3, 9, 27 (3^0, 3^1, etc.)

I was thinking about this last night while I was sleeping.

What does the following cyclic pattern of numbers represent?

0
1
3
2
6
7
5
4
0

Starting with the top number, it's how many steps forward I take, followed by how many backward, how many forward again, backward...etc and so on.

So you always end up back where you started!

I KNEW this looked familiar.

I want there to be a reason that the first letters of the number names are in a pattern as well (z, o, t, t, s, s, f, f, z)... But it's not reverse alphabetical order, because 3/2 and 5/4 would be out of place.

I dream in binary.

000 001 011 110 111 101 100 000

000
001
011
110
111
101
100
000


uh?

You made a small error (you skipped 2).
It should be:

0 000
1 001
3 011
2 010
6 110
7 111
5 101
4 100
0 000
... ...

There's no 8 in binary?

There's no I in team. But there is an i in meat pie. And meat is an anagram of team.

8 in binary is 1000.

This one is interesting and relies on powers of observation, note that the four trianlges are re-arranged into two different rectangles, one square the other oblong with different numbers of squares.

'splain.

@BigV: Scores at halftime.

But you're not supposed to eat your team right?

Is this implying that if you cut up the one on the right you could re-arrange the pieces to make the one on the left?

yes, and vice versa. Note the bold vertical line on the left is now two offset shorter vertical lines on the right. flopping the triangles is part of it.

Because you can't actually cut the pieces like that, though it's close. The angle of the triangles doesn't match the angle of the rectangles with slanted tops.

Rise over run of triangles = 3/8 = 15/40
Rise over run of angled pieces = 2/5 = 16/40

There would be a sliver of a gap along the main diagonal in the right-hand picture, enough to add up to one square's worth.

God, you are so hot when you terms like rise over run. But it's 3/8 and 3/5.

You're nuts. In your second picture, look at the diagonal on the right. Count the squares. Up two, over five.

It's even hotter when you point out my obvious mistakes.

In my defense, I was thinking about other things when I was counting those squares.

In your defense, you did call this a mental nuts thread.

Mental Nuts is taking a few days off to deal with some pressing issues IRL.

The answer is that each number only changes a single digit from the previous number.

And for bonus points, what is this pattern called, and what is it used for?

~~

*cough*

.

That did literally make me snort with laughter.
A real in-and-out snuffly-grunt.

It's not even that funny.
But it really hit the spot right then and there.
Thank you.

Figured this was a good place for it.
I couldn't find anything with a squirrel and a tree ;)

Well, the thing is I have to find some full time work asap, as we are headed into foreclosure right now and are about 2 or 3 months behind on all our utilities. That is the big mental nut I need to be cracking right now.

Things are grim, but not yet dire. Plus I am still living in crazy town, I'm gonna leave out some of the latest stories in order to protect what little remains of my so called sanity.

I'd be willing to scan the entire book and email the file to anyone who'd like to take this over.

Shit, Foot.

I always feel I win in the pity stakes because I only work part-time and not by choice.
And I'm nearly 40 and live with the 'rents and not by choice.
And I have no partner to share things with... ah, who knows there.

But I am supported.
I have no further to fall.
And I have no dependents; it would distress me enormously, but Diz could be adopted or even put down if I reached the end of my resources. I'd fight it of course. Still, you could never even reach that possibility about a child.

I feel for the desperation you have.

Damn fff... so sorry to hear that.
Is there any help for you in this latest bank/mortgage settlement?

Foot! I'm sorry to hear this. Please ignore my earlier coughing fit.

I'm sorry, foot. I wish I had work to send you. If you don't have anything else to do all day anyway, maybe you could go to small businesses and convince them to get a website done by UT, and then be his remote photographer for these places? Sales commission plus photo pay, eh?

Thanks folks. That would be sweet, Clod. I actually spent a lot of time last year with SCORE researching a business plan like that. For various reasons (I think my surgery) I dropped it.

At some point I realized I am completely burnt out on photography, and want to do almost anything but that.

I may work up a whine thread. I have emailed my new resume to 3 places I'd like to work (so far) and had a f/u call with one and was very warmly received. I need to keep my positive mental attitude and keep calling.

Let's write a sitcom. I have ideas!

I'm burnt out too.