Great minds can unravel complexity. This week’s Micro Softy is relative; it tests your ability to deal with complex relationships.
I was talking to Ben recently about PragerU videos, when the alarm went off on his cell phone. He turned it off and looked at the time.
“I’m late for a Zoom meeting!” he cried. We shook hands and he hurried away.
My cell phone rang. It was my boss Ms. Sterno from work.
and me. How are Ben and I related if Ben’s mother is my mother’s
mother-in-law?/ChatGPT
“I’ve been texting you all morning!” she said. “You’re supposed to be working!”
I told her I had been having an important conversation with Ben and had missed her texts. Her reply was snarky.
“Who’s Ben?”
I didn’t like her tone, but she is my boss after all. And I don’t lie. So I decided to obfuscate and answered,
“Ben is a valued friend and source of information. His mother is my mother’s mother-in-law.”
“Oh,” she responded. It was clear that she still had no idea who Ben was.
Do you? How is Ben related to me if Ben’s mother is my mother’s mother-in-law?
The solution to Monday Micro Softy 56: Elon Musk Parody’s Wheel of Numbers
Last week’s Micro Softy task was to identify the missing number on the wheel shown below.
The middle of the wheel shows a 5. Entries on opposite sides of the circle are multiples of 5, like 2×5=10, 3×5=15 and 4×5=20. There are two possibilities for the missing number. It could be 1 because 1×5=5. Or it could be 25 because 5×5=25.
Note, though, that the smaller numbers are st the top of the wheel and the larger ones at the bottom.
So the right answer, the smaller of the two answers, is that the missing number is 1.
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 56: “Elon Musk”’s circle of numbers The circle of numbers looks pretty simple until you start thinking about it… If you suspected that last week’s talk of baseball was just a distraction from the real puzzle hint, now you can find out.
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!
