The Crazy Check

Political advertisements are by their nature awkward, particularly for candidates that don't have the budget for a slick promotional team. If you are running for office, though, the one thing you should always ensure is that your ad doesn't make you look flat out insane.


(via Deus Ex Malcontent)

Start of the Week Quotations

Things continue to be a little slow around here as the World Cup starts to get exciting... an epic Iberian showdown is imminent, and the South American powerhouses are crowding out so much of the competition that they are starting to turn on themselves. Still, I cannot slack off too much - this week should see another chapter from the Cayo Largo trip and I plan to re-open my Computing Intelligence blog. For now, here are the week's quotations.

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and poet, 1803-82

"The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own." - William Empson, English poet and literary critic, 1906-84

"Everything has two handles, by one of which it ought to be carried and by the other not^*." - Epictetus, Phyrgian Stoic philosopher, c. 50-120

"Without Britain Europe would remain only a torso." - Ludwig Erhard, German statesmen and Chancellor of West Germany from 1963-6, 1897-1977


^*This observation was clearly made before American litigiousness required adequate safety labels to be placed on all product handles.

Midweek Quotations

Sorry for the lack of posts - the World Cup has been just too exciting. To tie things over, here are some (rather late) midweek quotations.

"He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow."
"A difference in taste of jokes is a great strain on the affections."
- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), English novelist, 1819-80

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." - T.S. Eliot, Anglo-American writer, 1888-1965

"I will make you shorter by the head." - Elizabeth I, Queen of England from 1558-1603, 1533-1608

"I sometimes sense the world is changing almost too fast for its inhabitants, at least for us older ones." - Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom from 1952, 1926-

Solutions to Puzzle Number 13: The Phantom Titles

Last week I released the prequel to my oblique title collection, Puzzle Number 13: The Phantom Titles. Although reviews pointed out that its plot and overall structure were weak in comparison to the original trilogy tetralogy, citing the lack of notability in the fourth part, awkward attempt at a romantic inclusion in the seventh, and blatantly obvious conclusion^*, many still conceded that advances in computer technology^** helped overcome notability weaknesses, and the brilliantly choreographed and scored wordplay of the penultimate part made the whole puzzle worth going through. Additionally, critics all agreed that at the least the whole thing wasn't about taxes and none of the solutions hinged on the outcome of a pod-race.

Solutions were sent in by Mitch, Sarah, Cornucrapia, Kim, and Kevin. The solutions are as follows:

1.) Epic Stories of the Collapse
Legends of the Fall (Movie)
Solved by Mitch, Sarah, Kim, and Kevin.

2.) Exponential Parkland Protectors
Power Rangers (Television)
Solved by Mitch, Kim, Cornucrapia, and Kevin. Sarah helped me test this one, so she was excluded from answering it.

3.) Firearms, Pathogens, and Carbon-Iron Alloys
Guns, Germs, and Steel (Book)
Solved by everyone who sent in solutions.

4.) Meeting with the Seventh Avatar of Vishnu
Rendezvous with Rama (Book)
Solved by Cornucrapia. Mitch, Sarah, and Kevin all managed to solve it with the help of Google and Wikipedia, and Kim managed to figure out that Rama was involved, but didn't know any titles that went with that.

5.) Fortified Domicile
Castle (Television)
Solved by Mitch, Sarah, Kim, and Kevin.

6.) Happiness
Glee (Television)
Solved by Mitch, Sarah, Kim, and Kevin. Sarah also pointed out that 7th Heaven could have been a valid possibility.

7.) Excellent Future Notions
Great Expectations (Book)
Solved by Mitch, Sarah, Kim, and Kevin.

8.) The Hilarity of Mistakes
The Comedy of Errors (Shakespearean Play)
Solved by Mitch, Sarah, Kim, and Kevin.

9.) No Sound from the Cowboy Film Forward Face
All Quiet on the Western Front (Book, also turned into a Movie)
Solved by everyone who sent in solutions.

10.) Ferric Guy
Iron Man (Film)
Solved by everyone who sent in solutions.

^*Writer/director/producer Mozglubov tried to defend the obviousness of the conclusion by stating that such story elements were necessary "for the kids", but his argument was generally panned among critics.
^**Google and Wikipedia

Monday Morning Quotations

"Long experience has taught me that to be criticized is not always to be wrong." - Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister from 1955-7, 1897-1977

"If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."
"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen."
- Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist, 1879-1955

"When preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, 1890-1969

Puzzle Number 13: The Phantom Titles

Although it was only two puzzles ago that I last did an oblique title set, the fact that I took a long break from puzzle posting means it has still been a while (plus, these puzzles are the most fun to make). As usual, the puzzle consists of a set of titles pulled from movies, television shows, and literary works (and, occasionally, more than one of those categories) and then obfuscated with synonyms and alternative definitions; your task is to determine the original title.

1.) Epic Stories of the Collapse

2.) Exponential Parkland Protectors

3.) Firearms, Pathogens, and Carbon-Iron Alloys

4.) Meeting with the Seventh Avatar of Vishnu

5.) Fortified Domicile

6.) Happiness

7.) Excellent Future Notions

8.) The Hilarity of Mistakes

9.) No Sound from the Cowboy Film Forward Face

10.) Ferric Guy

As usual, send your solutions to mozglubov@gmail.com

Note: Solutions can be found here.

Solution to Puzzle Number 12: The Unpopular Code

So it turns out that code-breaking is not the most popular activity among my readers; Puzzle 12 was the first puzzle for which I received no solutions. For anyone who was curious about the code, though, the solution is as follows.

Messages were encoded according to the following steps:
1.) For all letters, convert to a number according to the alphabetic position (A -> 1, B -> 2, etc.)

2.) Subtract 12 from each number

3.) If a resulting number is less than or equal to zero, subtract one more (this gets rid of any zeros)

4.) Convert all positive numbers to their alphabetic equivalent (1 -> A, 2 -> B, etc.)

5.) For all negative numbers, take the absolute value and convert that to their alphabetic equivalent. Follow the letter with a (pseudo^*)random integer.

Thus, the encoded message HH8L9, H1L9FA9 F4FH8M, E1CH can be decoded as follows:

H -> 8, 8+12 = 20 -> T

H8 -> -8, -8+13 = 5 -> E

L9 -> -12, -12+13 = 1 -> A

and so on, to reveal the original message TEA, EARL GREY, HOT

Since I had decided to make the category classic science fiction film and television, I went with the two messages that are most iconic in my mind of the genre:

Message 1

SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER. THESE ARE THE VOYAGES OF THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE. ITS FIVE-YEAR MISSION: TO EXPLORE STRANGE NEW WORLDS, TO SEEK OUT NEW LIFE AND NEW CIVILIZATIONS, TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE.

Message 2

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY... STAR WARS