Neatorama presents our collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?
Four hours ago, it was as long after 4am as it was before 4pm the same day. What time is it now?
Think you know the answer? Find out at Pzzlr!
Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!
(Image credit: Flickr user Alex Eylar)
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?
(Image credit: Flickr user bolly-maymay)
"Watch out for the poison ivy," Jonah shouted, pointing to the shiny, purple-tinged leaves along the side of the cottage.
The man from Central Indiana Power & Gas glanced down at the dangerous weeds, then grabbed a pair of work gloves from his tool belt. "Thanks," he shouted back. With the gloves on, he reached through the leaves to the main valve. "It's all off," he called to Detective Bixby, as he turned the knob all the way. "You can go in."
Just fifteen minutes earlier, a postal carrier had smelled gas coming through the mail slot of Anna Plinkov's little stone cottage. He immediately called the gas company and the police. Carol Bixby had been four blocks away, driving her son to his Saturday baseball practice, and responded to the call.
"All the doors and windows are locked from the inside," Carol observed. She had a rock in her hand and now used it to smash a window by the front door. Reaching inside, she unlatched it. "You stay out here," she warned Jonah, then climbed in through the window. Jonah watched from the porch as one by one the doors and windows of the cottage flew open, letting the poisonous gas escape.
Jonah was still on the front porch when a small sedan pulled up to the curb. A young woman, about 25 years old, sprang out and came toward him, fumbling through a key chain. She stopped as she saw the open door and Jonah standing beside it. "The police called me," she said. "I'm Miss Plinkov's niece. Is there something wrong?" Then she smelled the gas. "Oh, dear." A second later she was running into the house. "Aunt Anna?"
It was five minutes later when a second car pulled up. The driver was a young man, about the same age as the niece. He, too, climbed up the porch steps, smelled the gas, and asked about his aunt.
Hey look! It's time to play a game, from Neatorama and the wonderful What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? It doesn't really matter if you do, because we are looking for the funniest guesses. You can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But first, read the rules:
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners who submit funny and/or clever (albeit ultimately wrong) answers will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
If you guess the correct answer, you'll get a big pat on the back.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Update: the unidentified object is now identified as a Western Electric indicator box. It indicates something! But we wanted funny-but-wrong answers, and we got plenty. This one from sandyra is worth a t-shirt: "It's the original Price is Right's version of Plinko. Unfortunately all the discs ran sideways instead on straight down so no one ever won the money. After they turned the game on it's side it worked much better…" And so is one from tarnation:
It's a binary lock box. Convert to decimal, then knock that many times and it springs open. Black=1, white=0, so then 111001110010111111110001 represents 15,151,089. Knock 15,151,089 times to open. If you lose count, you must wait 16 hours to let the lock reset.
Or just use a saw.
Congratulations to those two, but you should really go read all the great guesses this week. See the answers to all the mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog.
Neatorama presents our collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?
How would this equation be correct without changing it?
Think you know the answer? Find out at Pzzlr!
Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!
(Image credit: Alex1011)
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?
(Image credit: Berishafjolla)
As one of the city's only female detectives, Carol Bixby was often stuck with non-detective chores, like doing paperwork. But it was because she was stuck here at the station house on one particular morning, writing up a boring report, that she was picked to join the FBI on an emergency operation.
The FBI's Computer Fraud Division was on the trail of a hacker who was releasing computer viruses through the Beaverton College e-mail system. The hacker had stayed one step ahead of them, changing computers with every attack. But now they were getting close. Carol helped them get a search warrant and accompanied the FBI agents when they knocked on an apartment door just off campus.
A short young man answered their knock. His name was Oscar Paterno, and he shared the place with two other students. "I know next to nothing about computers," Oscar told them. "When I need one, I go to the school's computer lab."
One of his roommates was there to support this claim. "Yeah, as far as I know, Oscar doesn't even have e-mail," said Mark Gilley. The lanky Australian was in the kitchen, a skillet in his left hand, flipping pancakes. "You blokes want some griddle cakes?" he asked. Carol and the agents declined.
"And where is your computer?" Carol asked the Aussie.
"It died last week," Mark told them. "I'm waiting on a check from Mum and Dad to buy a new one."
The FBI found only one computer in the apartment, a desktop owned by the missing roommate, Boris Brinsky, a math major and chess wizard. They took photos of Boris's room and then packed up the computer for further examination at the lab.
They were just carting it out the door when Boris walked in. "What are you people doing?" he demanded. Carol showed him the search warrant and took him aside to answer questions.
Hey look! It's time for our collaboration with the wonderful What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? It doesn't really matter if you do, because we are looking for the funniest guesses. You can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But first, read the rules:
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners who submit funny and/or clever (albeit ultimately wrong) answers will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
There are more pictures of this thing, and other mystery items of the week at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: the object in question was never authoritatively identified, and even the What is It? blog doesn't know what it is. That doesn't keep us from awarding prizes, because we were looking for the funniest guesses! Rubinsky said it was a Peppermint Patty trap. "Down on the farm, those little choco-minty delights would be zipping around all over the place at blazing speed, and the only way to catch one was to use this device." Randall told a story about it:
Remember POGS? This is 'the' pog press. Remember how many of them there was, there were millions, they were everywhere. All of them came from this damn press. This is the only one. I worked the midnight to eight shift, 3.75 an hour. Seventeen months in Minot, North Dakota, pressing pogs. Damn Damn Damn.
So Rubinsky and Randall both win t-shirts from the Neatoshop! See the answers to the other mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog.
Neatorama presents our collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?
A teacher places three coins in front of her student: 1 copper, 1 silver, and 1 gold. She tells her student, “If you tell me a true statement, you will be given one of the coins. But if your statement proves to be false, you will be given nothing.”
What should the pupil say to guarantee being given the gold coin?
Can you figure out the answer? Find out if you're right at Pzzlr!
Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!
(Image credit: Flickr user dichohecho)
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?
(Image credit: David Monniaux)
For half his life, Jonah Bixby had been doing his homework in police stations. He would walk to the precinct house right after school, say hello to Sergeant Brown at the front desk, then make his way to some unused room and keep himself busy until his mother got off duty.
One day in late October, Jonah sat alone in an observation room, working on some boring math problems. There was a one-way mirror between him and the interrogation room, and when the lights went on and people started entering the interrogation room, Jonah flipped the microphone switch. He knew he shouldn't do it, but he couldn't resist. It was just like having his own private police reality show.
Jonah was surprised to see his mother beyond the one-way mirror. She was talking to another officer, and Jonah was able to piece together the details of their current case. There had been a robbery that afternoon at a warehouse. The police were tipped off by a silent alarm, but when they arrived on the scene the perpetrators had escaped.
"They obviously had a lookout who warned them," Detective Carol Bixby told her partner. "The area around the warehouse is pretty deserted, but we did manage to round up three suspicious characters. I think we should question them together."
Jonah knew this was unusual. The police almost always preferred to question suspects separately. But when the three men walked into the interrogation room, he saw that this was a highly unusual situation.
The first suspect wore sunglasses and walked with a white cane. He was blind. The second was accompanied by a civilian police employee. They signed back and forth with their hands, and Jonah quickly deduced that this suspect was deaf. The third had his right arm in a plaster cast.
Now it's time for our collaboration with the awesome What Is It? Blog! What is this thing? You don't have to know to win!
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. You might know the true answer, but we're going to select two winners who come up with the funniest, most outlandish guesses to win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop. However...
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Check out more pictures of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: this turned out to be a Type K D.C. Relay that was made by the General Railway Signal Company. We had a lot of funnier guesses. Trillian guessed it was an emergency jumpstarter for Frankenstein's monster. That's good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Another great guess came from azog, who said it was "an early prototype of a defibrillator. Unfortunately it tended to blow off the patients thumbs." That paints a picture, alright, and it's good for a t-shirt as well! Find out the identifications of all the mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog.
Neatorama presents our collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?
A tank has three taps. The first can fill the tank in 4 hours, the second can fill the tank in 2 hours and the third can empty the tank in 8 hours.
How long will it take to fill the tank with all three taps operating at the same time? (You can assume the tank is empty to begin with).
Think you know the answer? Find out at Pzzlr!
Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!
(Image credit: Cjp24)
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?
(Image credit: Flickr user Peter Lewis)
Jonah came down for breakfast one morning looking tired and worried. "Did you hear a gunshot last night?"
"Gunshot?" His mother stopped pouring cereal into a bowl. "Around here?" Carol Bixby and her son lived on a cul-de-sac with only one other house nearby.
Jonah nodded. "I heard Mr. and Mrs. Grover next door fighting, and then I heard a gunshot. I was so tired, I just went back to sleep, but I'm sure it was a gun."
"You were dreaming," his mother said. "I didn't hear anything."
"Your bedroom's on the other side of the house," Jonah replied. "And you're a sound sleeper. Can we go next door and check it out?"
Carol smiled. "You think the Grovers killed each other? Jonah, you spend too much time with me at work. Not everything is a crime."
But Jonah insisted and Carol knew that the only way to shut him up was to give in. So they both put on jackets and walked across to their neighbors' split-level home. On the front lawn was a "Sold" sign. After months of trying, the Grovers had sold their house just yesterday and were moving to Sacramento, California.
Jonah was about to knock when he heard a banging sound coming from inside. "You see?" he said. Without even thinking, he turned the knob and pushed open the door.
Mr. Grover was alone in the living room, pounding a nail into the wall. "Carol? Jonah?" he said, surprised. "Just a second." And he took a picture from the floor and hung it on the nail. "Come on in," he said, turning to greet them.
Carol blushed. "Sorry to disturb you, Bob, but Jonah thinks he heard something last night. Were you and Dora..." She didn't know quite how to say it. "Were you guys arguing last night?"
"Arguing?" Bob Grover looked puzzled. "No. Dora left yesterday to close on the house in Sacramento. The new owners of this place are coming by any minute for a final walk-through."
"Do you mind if I have a look around?" Jonah asked. "I mean, I don't think I've ever seen your whole house."
Mr. Grover smiled. "The movers are coming Monday to pack us up, so the place is a mess. But sure, knock yourself out."
It's Thursday, so you know what it means, Neatoramanauts: it's time for the What Is It? Game, brought to you by the always amusing What Is It? Blog.
What are these things in the pictures? Your guess can win you a free T-shirt of your choice from the NeatoShop. Here's how to play:
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, but you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks.
You might know what they are, but if you want to win a t-shirt, you'll have to use your imagination, because we are going to select two winners who give us the funniest incorrect guesses. If you guess right, then good for ya - but you don't win anything, mmkay? So, it's up to you, funny people: you have twice the chance of winning that T-shirt now.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. We highly suggest you take a look at the NeatoShop's new selection of Funny T-shirts and Science T-Shirts.
Ready? Go for it! (Don't forget to visit the What Is It? Blog for more clues!)
Update: the mystery object is a cork borer sharpener. "A cork borer, often used in a chemistry or biology laboratory, is a metal tool for cutting a hole in a cork or rubber stopper to insert glass tubing." And this thing sharpens it. That was weird, but y'all came up with even weirder answers. A t-shirt goes to Kevin George, who said it is a "Radial doughnut cutter." Makes perfect sense. Another t-shirt goes to Jaguarfeather, who said "Tis a lawless switchblade peg-leg belongin' ter Captain Kidd's Kid. He were so short, nobody ere noticed him much, but iff'n ever a pirate be less than kind to the little bilge rat, the Kid took 'is satisfaction direct out of 'is ankle, he did!" Congratulations to the winners, and a big thank you to the What Is It blog, where you can find the answers to all this week's mystery items.
Neatorama presents our collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?
Every year Santa changes the order in which his single line of nine reindeer will pull his sleigh (to avoid jealousy among the reindeer, obviously). This year the elves responsible for harnessing the team have been given the following instructions:
Comet behind Rudolph, Prancer and Cupid. Blitzen behind Cupid and in front of Donder, Vixen and Dancer. Cupid in front of Comet, Blitzen and Vixen. Donder behind Vixen, Dasher and Prancer. Rudolph behind Prancer and in front of Donder, Dancer and Dasher. Vixen in front of Dancer and Comet. Dancer behind Donder, Rudolph and Blitzen. Prancer in front of Cupid, Donder and Blitzen. Dasher behind Prancer and in front of Vixen, Dancer and Blitzen. Donder behind Comet and Cupid. Cupid in front of Rudolph and Dancer. Vixen behind Rudolph, Prancer and Dasher.
What is the order of the reindeer?
Think you know the answer? See the solution at Pzzlr!
Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!
(Image credit: Flickr user m.prinke)
It's time for our weekly collaboration with Conceptis Puzzles, and this week we have the Skyscraper Light game, where you get to arrange skyscrapers in a grid so their skyline is visible according to the clues.
The object is to place a skyscraper in each square so that no two skyscrapers in a row or column have the same number of floors. In addition, the number of visible skyscrapers, as viewed from the direction of each clue, is equal to the value of the clue. Note that higher skyscrapers block the view of lower skyscrapers located behind them. There is only one unique solution for each puzzle.
Game Instructions: Click mouse on the desired square to open dial pad and then click on the desired number. To remove a number, repeat the above using X at the bottom of the dial pad. Numbers can also be placed by pointing mouse on the desired square and then typing with the keyboard.
So go ahead and check it out! Then visit Conceptis Puzzles for more neat puzzles.
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Jonah Bixby, a twelve-year-old crime solver and son of a police detective. Can you solve the crime?
Detective Bixby picked her son up from school, waving him quickly into the car. "We just got an anonymous tip," Carol Bixby said as she pulled away from the curb. "The Diamond Expo is going to be robbed today."
Jonah had been looking forward to going home to his usual after-school snack, but this was even better. "Diamond Expo? Isn't that at the Hotel Royale?"
"Right, as always," Ms. Bixby said as she turned down First Street. "The tip says Margo the Cat will be involved. No one knows what she looks like, so we're blanketing the hotel with undercover officers."
She parked at a broken meter and whisked her son into the hotel lobby. "You stay here," she ordered as they passed the hotel shop. "And try to stay out of trouble. This case is for grown-ups."
Jonah did as he was told, but kept his eyes peeled. What caught his attention first was not a woman but a man, burly and bald, like a genie in a fairy tale. The genie was loitering in the hotel lobby's shop. Eventually he bought a bottle of aspirin, foot powder, and a pack of anti-snoring strips.
Right next to the shop was the hotel's jewelry store. Jonah saw a man in there, perfectly dressed and movie-star handsome. He was browsing the display cases, even though the Diamond Expo, a hundred feet away, contained many more interesting samples.
The third suspect resembled a street person. His tousled hair and scruffy whiskers reminded Jonah of the hobos he'd seen in old photographs. The man was circling the lobby's flower arrangements, smelling the roses, and looking over his shoulder.
It was at about this time that Jonah wandered into the shop and became distracted by a mystery novel in the book rack. He picked it up, read the jacket blurb, examined the cover illustration, and was convinced that he'd figured out the ending.... And then the lights went out.
