posted January 21, 2008 10:41 PM         

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Mirandee, your clue was worth more to this puzzle than the Kings.

You said: Remember Your Head Is At Stake Here. Signifying, the dead seriousness of this situation...

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I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

I know that you both seem to get these at the same time and just figured that maybe YFIS was the faster typist. hee hee

Really, hats off ( no pun intended ) to both of you. This riddle would be really hard for most people or at least take them longer to figure out than it did the two of you, YFIS and Lexx. Excellent!!!!

The answer is right:

The hat is blue.

At first glance, this problem appears to be impossible to solve. Contributing to this is the feeling that the King's only real clue - that there is at least one blue hat - is useless since the sage can clearly see that there are at least two blue hats.

Don't feel bad if you sat stuck on this one for a while: as the puzzle clearly states, so did the three wisest sages in the kingdom. It is this fact that allowed our sage to give his answer. In truth, any one of them would have come up with it, given enough time. Why?

Consider a situation which we knew was not the case- that there was exactly one blue hat. What would happen? There would be a split second of pondering by the person wearing that hat, and he would say "I am wearing a blue hat." No real puzzle there, but of course there wasn't just one blue hat. The important fact is that everyone knew there was not one blue hat. But more importantly than that, everyone knew, or could quickly figure out that everyone else knew this (by the fact that answer was did not come out in the first few seconds.)

This leaves everyone wondering, "Are there two or three blue hats?"

Consider this less obvious situation- that there were exactly two blue hats. This seems a very real possibility at first, after all, we can see exactly two blue hats. So everyone sits and thinks- for a little while. But if there are only two hats, then two people see one blue and one white hat. These two people will very quickly, by virtue of the other's silence, rule out the possibility that there is only one blue hat. One of these two lucky sages would cry blue within a few short minutes, if that long.

There is only one case which forces the three sages to sit in silence - three blue hats. Our sage, through his sharp wits was the first to reach this conclusion.

posted January 21, 2008 10:42 PM         

Since I was born in Clarksville, Arkansas

Mr. Moody grumbles about bad time-keeping trains from morning till night!.

On one particular morning he was quite justified.

His train left on time for the one hour journey, to Clarksville, and it arrived 5 minutes late.

However, Mr. Moody 's watch showed it to be 3 minutes early, so he adjusted his watch by putting it forward 3 minutes.

His watch kept time during the day, and on the return journey in the evening the train started on time, according to his watch, and arrived on time, according to the station clock.

If the train travelled 25 percent faster on the return journey than it did on the morning journey, was the station clock fast or slow, and by how much?

posted January 21, 2008 10:50 PM         

Explaination:
The train station clock is 3 minutes fast.
Trip took 65 minutes in the morning, so it took 52 minutes in the evening.
Essentially, the train came 57 minutes after it should have left!

Total = 3 minutes early

posted January 21, 2008 10:51 PM         

quote:

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I know that you both seem to get these at the same time and just figured that maybe YFIS was the faster typist. hee hee

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posted January 21, 2008 10:57 PM         

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And you two sages with sharp wits reached the same conclusion.

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posted January 21, 2008 10:58 PM         

I'm a total hen pecker!

lefthanded one key at a time, it totally sucks!!!

My hubby teases me

I refuse to practice the correct way as I had a not so good experience back in JR. High School typing class. LOL!

posted January 21, 2008 11:01 PM         

Are you interested?

I thought that you might enjoy a bit of a breather as you've been workin' your booty off here...

posted January 21, 2008 11:11 PM         

I have SOoooo many typo's too!...

Have you seen how often I flippin' edit my posts, LOL!

This seems to bring about the perfectionist part of me and over and over I go back to fix my spelling errors...

Too funny!

I notice Mirandee also is an editor like me... again, and again.. tryin' to get it "Just Right"

edited to add:
My friend has this really high tech cool voice recognition program some cyber tweaked
"Dragon Speak" I would love to get my hands on, LOL! I'll find out what it is...
You could check it out.
I don't think I personally have enough patience to train it. heee...heee...

posted January 21, 2008 11:17 PM         

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I have SOoooo many typo's too!...

This seems to bring about the perfectionist part of me and over and over I go back to fix my spelling errors...

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posted January 22, 2008 12:07 AM         

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Hey Mirandee, I've been trying to stop you long enough to offer you the opportunity to take a break and actually play the game...
Are you interested?

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I am having too much fun just trying to find a riddle that stumps you guys. LOL I feel there has to be one out there. Besides I really am lousy at riddles.

Yes, I do edit a lot because if I see an omitted word or a mispelled word my perfectionism won't let me just leave it.

I am a two handed typer. Fingers on the home keys and the whole bit. The only thing I have to look at the keyboard for is numbers and things like that. I type pretty fast but my daugter is faster. I tend to omit words many times due to typing fast and I would be lost without the backspace key.

You got the answer right once again YFIS.

The answer:

The station clock is 3 minutes fast.

The morning journey took 65 minutes, and the evening journey therefore took 52 minutes, and the train arrived 57 minutes after it should have left, that is, 3 minutes early.

LOL Lexx, yes you guys get to keep your heads.

This is fun but I will give you guys a break and let you rest your brains. LOL