Heard on my way home from a frantic pre-MC shopping run Sunday, this bit on Prairie Home Companion about finding love with English majors on the Internet was hilarious.
I knew nothing about the Prairie Home Companion until the late 70s, when my cousin Mark put it on one night while we were visiting down to Billerica. I can’t claim to be a huge fan; I don’t really seek it out; but it’s funny and enjoyable when I catch it on. Next week they will have Vasen on; love that band, saw them live at the Monterey World Music Festival a couple years back (along with Steeleye Span, yay), when I lived in Monterey… I never appreciated all the things you could do in the Monterey area – the Osio Theater (and the historic State Theater a couple blocks away); the Forest Theater in Carmel where my kids and I saw many wonderful plays; and the famous Monterey Fairgrounds… oh well.
Anyway, talked a couple weeks ago about the Car Talk puzzler. I didn’t listen to their show the past two weeks, so no idea if I won, but here was my answer.
Problem is to split one thousand $1 bills among the fewest number of envelopes such that you could hand someone some portion of those envelopes to match any dollar amount, up to $1000, they requested.
First envelope has to contain $1. The second, twice as much – $2. Now you can hand someone one, two, or (with both envelopes), three dollars. The next envelope therefore must contain four dollars. Now you can also do four, five, six or seven dollars. So the next is eight dollars – and so forth.
I figured you would need ten envelopes of cash to get up to one thousand dollars in this way. The envelopes would contain $1, $2, $4, $8, $16, $32, $64, $128, $256, and $489.
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If you read Boing Boing, you’ve probably already seen this link to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Advice Column. It is hilarious, though the author’s version of Middle English is a bit easier to read than the real Chaucer’s.
I first took an interest in Chaucer because of – what else – a MMO. I was in an early beta for DAoC, and when they announced the Friar class, well, I turned to Chaucer to get the whole story on them.
Seaside Public Library had a HUGE copy of Canterbury Tales – not thick so much as REALLY BIG. The book was half a yard per side, if anything. It had obviously been printed by hand. I found there the Friar’s Tale. Now, the Friar spent a lot of his time going on and on about the Summoner. So when it came the Summoner’s turn to tell his story, he had a few choice words for the Friar. Medieval humor at its best!
I spent a long time translating it to the modern English, but now, the miracle of the Internet makes all that work for nothing.
