Exceptional nerds are psychologists who see through surface actions. Such a skill is required to solve this week’s Micro Softy.
We see them almost daily. People, purportedly homeless, stand at traffic lights panhandling from passing cars.
I was in the car with my friend, Carl, driving home from work when we pulled up to an intersection with a red light. A shabbily dressed man with an unkept beard held up a cardboard sign saying, “Can you help? Please!”
While the light was red, Carl told me, “That’s Freaky Bob. He’s a kilobyte short of a full download. Watch. This is something I learned when I rode home with John from accounting.”
Carl rolled down his window and motioned for Freaky Bob to come over. Carl held a $5 bill and a $10 bill and presented them to Freaky Bob.
“You can have one of them,” he told Freaky Bob. Freaky Bob grabbed the $5 bill and started dancing a jig of joy. He blew a kiss at Carl and returned to the corner with his sign.
“That guy is so stupid!” Carl laughed. “He does that every time. It cracks me up!”
But is Freaky Bob really that stupid?
That’s this week’s Micro Softy question.
Solution to Micro Softy 62: The Ordeal of Sisyphus Fats
Here’s last week’s Micro Softy.
Sisyphus Fats tried to lose weight by pushing a large bowling ball up a 100 foot hill. Every minute, he pushed the ball three feet closer to the top and then slid two feet back. After regaining his breath, he pushed the ball another three feet up the hill and it slid back two. This happened again and again.
How many minutes did it take for Sisyphus Fats to push the ball to the top of the 100 foot hill?
Here’s the answer unpacked step by step. On minute 96, Sisyphus Fats was 96 feet up the hill. During the 97th minute, he pushes the bowling ball up three more feet to 99 feet but it fell back to 97 feet. The next minute, the 98th, he pushed it to 100 feet and he was done. There was no falling back on the 98th minute since the goal was reached.
So the answer is that Sisyphus Fats took 98 minutes to push the large bowing ball to the top of the 100 foot hill.
The Monday Micro Softy is a weekly feature of GeekPlanet News. Here are the links to all the puzzles and answers to date:
Monday Micro Softy 62: The Ordeal of Sisyphus Fats. The best computer programmers and engineers must be good at scheduling. Last week’s Micro Softy tests this ability and the solution is that Sisyphus Fats took 98 minutes to push the large bowing ball to the top of the 100-foot hill. You can find puzzles 55 through 62 here as well.
Monday Micro Softy 61: Micro Softy Take Five was more of a trivia question than it was a puzzle. To solve Micro Softy 61, the answer is the theme for the Mission Impossible movie franchise starring Tom Cruz. You can find puzzles 55 through 61 here as well.
Monday Micro Softy 60: Here’s a puzzle from Gunsmoke Told to “get out of Dodge”after a shooting, a gunslinger does so at a nearly inexplicable time. Can you solve the puzzle?
To solve Microsofty 59, recall that direction of air flow is due to pressure — not size. Which tire is under more pressure? You can find puzzles 56 through 59 here as well.
Monday Micro Softy 55: “It happens every spring.” Baseball, that is. Here’s a puzzle that takes in baseball’s summer. To solve last week’s puzzle, you don’t need to know the distance. Check the problem again for the number you do need to know. You can find puzzles 51 through 54 here as well.
Monday Micro Softy 50: Cutting through the cornbread. How did Yuri Senior cut the cornbread into eight identical portions using only three straight cuts? You can guess the answer to Microsofty 49 if you try the test question yourself at home, using a small mirror. Links to Microsofties 46 through 49 are here as well.
Monday Micro Softy 45: Can Tony beat the fast-food curfew? An early curfew on fast food service motivated a boy to exercise more vigorously. But how fast was he pedaling? To solve Micro Softy 44, recall that Tony doesn’t need to take the individual pills each day, only the prescribed amount of each. You will find links here to Micros Softies 41 through 44 as well.
Monday Micro Softy 40: The fate of a false prophet. He wasn’t actually fired for being a false prophet but for something that his prophecy unintentionally revealed. The solution to Micro Softy 39 lies in considering an alternative possible meaning of a word commonly used in sports. You will also find links to Micro Softies 30 through 39 and their answers here as well.
Monday Micro Softy 29: A funeral lament in four lines. The funeral director was puzzled by Dan’s description of his relationship to the deceased but there was no question that his grief was sincere Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 22 through 29.
Monday Micro Softy 21: Finding More of the Deadly Fentanyl Pills. Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 11 through 20 as well.
Monday Micro Softy 11: What Happened to That Other Dollar? Here you will find links to the first ten Micro Softies. Have fun!
