Silent Military Communication

How could a member of the military communicate silently and without light?

By using braille.

Braille was based on a tactile military code called night writing, developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon’s demand for a means for soldiers to communicate silently at night and without light. In Barbier’s system, sets of 12 embossed dots encoded 36 different sounds. It proved to be too difficult for soldiers to recognize by touch and was rejected by the military.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Old Man’s Book

Milton shuffled slowly along the shelves browsing books. He finally walked up to the counter and handed the girl a book. She looked at the inside cover and told him it would be $3.75. Milton handed her the money and walked away without the book. The girl watched him leave empty-handed but didn’t try to stop him. Why?

Milton was a forgetful and naughty fellow. He was summoning his courage to approach the counter to return his overdue book. The kindly lass at the counter saw the book was 15 days overdue and had accrued the egregious late fee of $3.75 (25 cents a day). Lesson learned, Milton never returned a book late again.

Posted in Brain Teasers

An Eye In a Blue Face

An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
“That eye is like to this eye”
Said the first eye,
“But in low place,
Not in high place.”

A daisy in the grass. The big eye is the sun.

This is from J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Posted in Riddles

I Live Above A Star

I live above a star but never burn. I have 11 neighbors but they never turn. My initials are p, q, r and sometimes s.

What am I?

Number 7 on a phone keypad.

Posted in Riddles

Doesn’t Fly Even With Wings

I have four wings but cannot fly,
I’ve never laughed nor will ever cry,
As much as I’d love to leave the ground,
I toil away with nary a sound.

What am I?

A few windmills

A windmill. The typical windmill, like the ones Don Quixote chased, have four vanes or sails. You might even say they look like wings. Windmills don’t have emotions, so they can’t laugh or cry. And since they don’t have actual wings, windmills don’t get off the ground. A well-oiled little bugger won’t make a peep.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

Abraham Encoding

The name ABRAHAM can be changed into a word for a primitive musical instrument by replacing each letter with a different letter. The repeated letters (A is this case) must be replaced with the same replacement letter in the new word.

What is the musical instrument?

PANPIPE

Posted in Brain Teasers

Bank Wait Times

Suppose a small bank has one teller and customer transactions take 10 minutes on average. With 5.8 customers arriving per hour, what is the expected wait time? What would it be if you added a second teller?

With one teller, customers will wait nearly five hours on average. But adding a second teller makes the wait go down to 3 minutes.

Thanks to John D. Cook for this one.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Go Around In Circles

I go around in circles,
But always straight ahead
Never complain,
No matter where I am led.

A wheel.

Posted in Riddles

A Blood Red Shroud

The thunder comes before the lightning,
And the lightning comes before the cloud,
The rain dries all the land it touches,
Wrapping the earth in a blood red shroud.

What am I?

A volcano.

Posted in Riddles

What House Weighs The Least?

What type of house weighs the least?

A lighthouse.

Posted in Riddles