The Bessler Curse

[fAtnhapy]

fAt,

Let's see here 440 yards in a ¼mile ...1760 yards in a mile times 3 is 5280 feet times 12 is 63360 inches times .0000234717952 is 1.487172943872 inches!! That's not off by that much. Next time I'll sharpen my pencil.

Gene

This isn't horseshoes or hand grenades. You could slide a cheeto through a 1.478717294378 gap and have .00023534356775435 inches left over.
fAt

[winkle]

Gene.. I didn't bit that hard! Oh.. by the way.. That Bears skin colur is "black".. :-p

anyone know how to catch a black skinned white haired polar bear

[fAtnhapy]

"anyone know how to catch a black skinned white haired polar bear"

Yeah, it's easy. You cut a big round hole in the ice and place a circle of peas around it. When the bear stops to take a pea you kick him in the ice hole.
fAt

[Michael]

Everyone that gave an answer, as strange as some of them were gave a normal answer. As Ken pointed out there could be any number of emotionaly driven reasons why the woman killed her sister. An accidental arrest would also be okay. I hesitate to use the words okay and normal because it puts the personality type this test was designed to source out in a bad light. This personality type is generally stereotyped as being evil, but they aren't evil, they just lack the emotional/empathic framework that most people have. This test was designed to see if the person who takes it is a psychopath. A psychopath generally answers the question with, she killed her sister so she could go to another funeral so she could meet that man again.
I learned of this test from my brother. There were two people he tried it on that tested positive. The last one I don't know but the first one is a long time friend of my brothers and he is definately different.

[winkle]

"anyone know how to catch a black skinned white haired polar bear"

Yeah, it's easy. You cut a big round hole in the ice and place a circle of peas around it. When the bear stops to take a pea you kick him in the ice hole.
fAt

thanks
i always wondered how they catch them rascals

[fAtnhapy]

Glad I could help.
fAt

[winkle]

what if he don't wonta pea

mabe could just kick him in the balls till he jumps in the hole

[fAtnhapy]

Well that would just be silly.
fAt

[rlortie]

Kick him in the Balls!
As a retired Vice President in charge of Polar bear rugs for the well known fur Trading co. "Ketchum, Killlum & Skinnem" your employment would be terminated immediately.

Kicking him in the balls activates a sudden chemical reaction in the system known as Testosterone Upsetis. This in turn causes poor quality control in the finished product as all the hair will fall out.

Ralph Lortie
Vice president (ret)
Ketchum, Killum & Skinnum
Fur Trading Co.

[fAtnhapy]

Most of my hair fell out and no one even kicked me in the balls.
fAt

[rlortie]

Same here, But now that it is too late for me, I have discovered how the younger generations can save the hair.

If is so simple I do not know why I did not think of it years ago!

Ralph

PS: This not being the proper thread for such nonsense will find any respone in "Off Topic" under the subject "Jokes"

[AgingYoung]

Since I've resolved the 'Bessler curse' to my satisfaction I'd like to rededicate this thread to another purpose. There are times that people start a 'serious' thread and really don't want the distractions that invariably come. If you'd like to mention something that would be a distraction in another thread but you don't want to disrupt the flow of that thread then post it here.

I'd like to thank fAt for giving me the idea. Of course I'd like to thank my parents; without which I would not even be here! And finally I'd like to thank all the 'little' people who in their own sort of way make me seem so special (by way of comparison). Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

Gene

[fAtnhapy]

Yer welcome.
fAt

[AgingYoung]

Ken,

I do agree with your point that it would be pure dumb luck for someone to solve this idea if they were just trying idea after idea. There's a classic chess problem of placing 8 queens on the board so that no queen has a capture. If you lined up the queens on the first row (queen's rook one, queen's knight one, etc) and began stepping thru the possibilities it would be dumb luck (probably impossible) if you could figure out all the solutions in the course of your life.

In that chess problem the described solution (no queen has a capture) can be equated to 'making a perpetual motion machine.' In the chess problem if you notice that queens in adjacent columns (ie queen's column, king's column) have to be separated by at least a knight move for them to satisfy the solution you have a method to approach the problem. What that means is you can discount any possibility where queens in adjacent columns are one move apart (ie queen one, king two). By doing that you eliminate some possibilities.

That change in the possibilities has also changed the nature of the problem. The problem is no longer trying to arrange the queens so no queen has a capture; the problem is still that yet more than that. The problem is arranging the queens so that adjacent queens are at least a knight's move away. You've simplified the problem and also have a clear direction to approach the original problem.

My point is that if you're deliberately looking for ideas along a certain line of reasoning and you find something that works I wouldn't call it luck. If on the other hand you're trying everything that comes to mind and you do manage a solution you are very lucky.

In the case of the chess problem if you happen to look at every possible solution (as I have) you will notice a pattern in the solutions. With one subset of those solutions you can rapidly generate the other 3 subsets by simply rotating the board 90º.

It could be that most people that have been looking at perpetual motion do something of what I've described. You need to be careful about discounting certain ideas though. The idea of exchanging horizontal for vertical distance is an idea that seems like every possibility has been exhausted and an idea that won't work. A lot of people think that. I propose to you that the idea hasn't been exhausted and is a viable one. That's where I'm currently looking and I don't want to explain how. The only thing I want to say about the idea is to give it further consideration. I apologize but that's the best I can do.

Gene

ps edit: If you want to try that chess problem but don't have eight queens, cheetos make a good substitute. Don't eat the queens! You can also draw a chess board with ink then make the queens with pencil. Any symbol (Â¥) could be used to represent the queen.

[ken_behrendt]

Gene wrote:

My point is that if you're deliberately looking for ideas along a certain line of reasoning and you find something that works I wouldn't call it luck. If on the other hand you're trying everything that comes to mind and you do manage a solution you are very lucky.

I see your point. One can reduce the amount of luck one needs to find a solution by narrowing the area that one is searching in. However, one could also say that a person would also have to be lucky due to the proper background, education, life experiences, etc. to be able to decide just how to narrow the search area in the first place. So, maybe, in the final analysis, it is all a matter of luck!

However, even if it is, that still does not mean that the person who got lucky should not feel proud of his accomplishment. In order to be in a position to receive that lucky discovery, no doubt that person may have had to spend years or decades pursuing the subject and enduring one failure and disappointment after another. Indeed, it does take a special kind of individual to withstand that continuing level of frustration and still maintain a positive attitude about one's quest.

I have no doubt that the solution will come in time and we will finally know how Bessler did it. The mystery will be gone and we will all then have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. However, I'm sure that other, perhaps equally as tantalizing, mysteries will surface to take its place...


ken