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BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years
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Subject: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 10 Jan 14 - 09:05 AM A problem that has bugged me since I came across it 73 or so years ago in The Junior Weekend Book returned today as a result of a chat in the car with my wife, who at some stage in her past as an IT manager achieved a diploma in Business Economics. This is the problem:- We presuppose two neighbouring states on good terms politcally and economically. Let us call them Polythene and Polydor [I forget what the Weekend Book called them]. There is no transborder travel restriction for their citizens. Each has a currency called the poly, worth 100 cents of its own currency; but by agreement a Polythene poly is worth 95 cents in Polydor, & vice versa. A Polythene citizen visits a bar on the border & buys a drink for 5 cents. He pays with a poly note of his own country, and receives in change a Polydor poly note, worth 95 cents in Polythene. He then crosses the border to another bar a few metres the other side, buys a 5 cent drink, & pays with the Polydor poly note he has just received in change in Polythene, receiving [just guess what!] a Polythene poly note as change. He repeats this process until, after a while, he sinks insensate right on the border. Now, consider:- The traveller has drunk enough to become insensible, has paid the legal amount for every drink, but [one assumes an even # of crossings] he has exactly the amount of money in his wallet as he started with. But at the same time, both bars have received full payments for the drinks they have served him, and neither is in any degree of deficit for goods sold. The question ∴ is -- Who, precisely, paid for the traveller's drinks? I have met nobody in all these years who could furnish a satisfactory answer. Anyone? ~Michael~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Jan 14 - 09:21 AM Nobody/the governments/the innkeepers. It all comes down to how the exchanges are accounted for on re-patriation of the notes. Such a situation, however, would never arise, as you'd get the likes of George Souros buying billions of one currency to sell in the other country, and then reversing the transaction. This is why, when you look at exchange rates they are (with allowances for banks margins) the inverse of one another. So if 100P = 95p, then 100p cannot be 95P. It must be 105.2P (approx.) Otherwise one or other country will quickly become bankrupt due to exchange rate pressures. So the answer to the original question is that no such state of affairs could be allowed to arise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: IanC Date: 10 Jan 14 - 10:23 AM Hi Nigel essentially has it but your wife, if she is a IT person should anyway know the answer as it is a prime example of GIGO. :-) Ian |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Allan C. Date: 10 Jan 14 - 10:27 AM This is also at least partially why most countries have their own currency and others have laws or restrictions on bringing in more currency from outside that country. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Pete Jennings Date: 10 Jan 14 - 10:42 AM Spot on Nigel. It's a riddle, not a question of IQ. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Jan 14 - 10:56 AM I would consider it more of a 'logic' problem. Once you realise that there is no readily apparent answer, you need to analyse the question to see where the original premise is faulty. A 'riddle', such as the riddle of the Sphinx, has an answer which may be logical, and which may be one of several possible correct answers, but seems to require a leap of understanding to arrive at the 'correct' answer. No such leap of understanding will ever get you a valid answer to the question as set above. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: robomatic Date: 10 Jan 14 - 12:38 PM It's like posing a problem in mechanics of horizontal motion and assuming frictionless bearings and wondering where the losses go. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 10 Jan 14 - 12:53 PM You are saying that the polydor is worth 95 cents in Polythene and that the polythene is worth 95 cents in polydor? That is certainly not a stable exchange rate. The real world answer is close to Nigel's, though I would not personalize it invoking Soros. The market would correct it. A smart bartender would simply give change in the other country's currency and make 5% more per transaction. Which is quite justified because this currency manipulating drinker evidently does not leave a decent tip. :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Jack Sprocket Date: 10 Jan 14 - 12:59 PM A Polythene citizen visits a bar on the border & buys a drink for 5 cents. He pays with a poly note of his own country, and receives in change a Polydor poly note, worth 95 cents in Polythene. No he doesn't. Rename the currencies A and B. B1.00 is worth A0.95 in Aland. A1.00 is worth B0.95 in Bland. So Polycytes from Aland goes into a bar in Bland, asks for a B0.05 drink and pays with A1.00. This is worth B0.95 so he receives B0.90 change, not B1.00. He takes his change and buys a drink in Aland, tenders his B0.90, here worth A0.855 and receives either B0.80 or B0.81 change, depending on how the rounding is done. And so on. He'd get more drinks at home. If on the other hand the agreement were that the neighbour's currency were valued at 1.05 times its value at home, the conundrum would work. In this most generous case, the bars in each land have their stack of x0.05s, and Polycytes has x1.00, depending on the location of the last purchase. All are happy. The following day, waking late with a bad head, he draws all his savings from the bank, a mere A99.00 because of his drinking habit, crosses the border, and exchanges his money with a passing citizen of B, Polycrates, who gives him B103.95 in exchange. He returns to his bank, banks B100.00 and is credited with A105.00, He spends the remaining B3.95 on drinks and doesn't get up the following day. Polycrates however is a teetotaller, and grasps the opporrtunity. He takes his A10000.00 to the bank and is credited with B10500.00. He withdraws B10000.00, crosses the border and opens an account in a nearby bank, and is credited with A10500.00. He immediately withdraws A10000.00, recrosses the border, and returns to his own bank where he is credited with B10500.00, his balance now being increased by B11000.00. He repeats this as fast as his little fat legs will carry him. The following day, he tries to repeat the same process, but finds that his own bank is closed. The staff have failed to turn up for work. He goes to the next nearest branch, and withdraws his B10000.00. On crossing the border, he finds the nearest bank closed, as coincidentally the staff therehave also absented themselves. Continuing to the next bank, he finds himself in a queue behind several people whom he recognises with some puzzlement as the staff of his own bank in Bland. Eventually banking his B10000.00 and withdrawing his A10000.00, he returns to Bland, only to find himself in a queue of the staff of both banks nearest the border. Do I need to describe the mad dash to withdraw his entire savings, and race to Cland where despite a very disadvantageous exchange rate, Polycrates manages to open an account just before the currencies of both Aland and Bland irrevocably collapse? |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 10 Jan 14 - 01:08 PM Who, precisely, paid for the traveler's drinks? The one of the two bars that assumes an incorrect exchange rate, or both. Precisely. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 10 Jan 14 - 01:21 PM In that case, Grishka, why was neither showing a deficit in receipts at the end of the day's trading? If they were no money down, how could they have 'paid' for anything ~~ any more than the traveller who finished up with a belly-full of booze and precisely as much money as he started with. Not sure what you mean by an 'incorrect' exchange rate, or by their 'assuming' it. Anyhow, it's got you all going, hasn't it? The fact that it would never actually happen doesn't discount the postulations on which the narrative is based: any more than Moses striking the water from the rock or Jesus raising the dead. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Don Firth Date: 10 Jan 14 - 01:44 PM The initial situation as described would never happen. Real life example: When I was a teen-ager (shortly after the end of the last Ice Age), my parents and I, who lived in Seattle (in the U.S.), visited Vancouver, B.C. (Canada) for a week. My parents were running an errand, so while they were doing that, I dropped in on a lunch counter near the hotel and ordered a cup of coffee. I gave the waiter an American dollar (the exchange rate was about 10%). The coffee was a dime a cup, and I was surprised when he gave me a dollar in change. A Canadian dollar. Which, in the U.S. would be worth about 90¢ American. I knew from experience that if I were to use the Canadian dollar in a U.S. lunch counter to buy a 10¢ cup of coffee, I would receive 90¢ in change (U.S.). There is a discrepancy of about 10% of a penny on both of these transactions, but the amount is sufficiently minimal that all parties simply write it off. But I would no longer have the Canadian dollar. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:01 PM It doesn't, from the narrative pov, matter if it would ever happen or not, Don; any more than intergalactic travel is ever going to happen thru what the sf-ers have invented and postulated as 'hyperspace'. In both instances, it is the acceptance of the postulate and the philosophical teasing out of its implications that matters. Anyhow, I'm not sure you have demonsttrated its impossibility with your story: in which ½ of it seems to have happened, which is + 0·5 more than I had ever thought likely. There is no logical reason that I can see in your narrative why it couldn't have been a 2-way transaction; just that one party to it preferred the coinage-change to the equivalent in exchanged bills; but suppose they hadn't? & was your experience of how they chose to operate the change-giving universal, or just at whim of the particular lunch-counter staff you happened to deal with? I mean, just suppose both had decided to use that 10c discrepancy for convenience? Are you sure such never-ever-ever happened on the other side of the border, just because it never happened to you? ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:40 PM John crosses the border with a dollar. Soon as he hands it to the bartender he receives a note worth 95 cents. So far, no one has paid for the beer. And there's the start of the fallacy in the transfer. All the bartender has done is make change. Now, John has to pay for the beer. After he does he will have a note for 90 cents. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:41 PM The original premise is that in each country the local currency is worth about 5 cents more than that of the other. The drinker is basically walking the money across the border and the til of each bartender is exchanging foreign bills for local. Assuming the relative values of the currency in each country remain the same, which is admittedly highly unlikely, then the drinker is being paid for toting the currency across the border where it is more valuable and everyone profits. Who, precisely, paid for the traveller's drinks? The traveler paid for the drinks with labour of toting the bills across the frontier. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Richard Bridge Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:45 PM The arithmetic in the problem is defective. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 10 Jan 14 - 03:20 PM I see little problem with the arithmetic. The economics is pretty screwed up though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 10 Jan 14 - 03:58 PM Yes, Jack -- 'paid by his labour' is what the editor of the Weekend Book said an economist would say; but he saw, & I see, and so do most posting here, that that is a cop-out. And as to, "Assuming the relative values of the currency in each country remain the same, which is admittedly highly unlikely" ~~ why unlikely; we are talking of a period of only a few hours at most, not any extended period. No, Richard, It is the arithmetic, or rather the arithmetical logic, of Guest of 0240 that is defective. I challenge you to demonstrate where you think the arithmetic of the original narrative is at fault. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 10 Jan 14 - 04:35 PM In that case, Grishka, why was neither showing a deficit in receipts at the end of the day's trading? If they were no money down, how could they have 'paid' for anythingEasy: at least one of the formal balances did not reflect the "truth". If the story is extended to the effect that both bars found banks stably supporting those exchange rates (unrealistically), the loss will then be transferred to the bank/s that accept/s the wrong rate. Discrepancies in exchange rates do happen, but they will collapse in a short time, when the losers find out that they are paying too much. A similar situation exists with "safe bets" when bookmakers differ in their rates for identical bets - until they find out. Still, clever jugglers with fast computers can make almost safe money at stock exchanges, until more clever jugglers turn up with even faster computers. Tiny and short-lived discrepancies can "generate" considerable fortunes, if exploited at large scale. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Jan 14 - 04:35 PM MtheGM: we are talking of a period of only a few hours at most, not any extended period. No, we are not talking "a few hours at the most" the original question (as you posted it) states: Each has a currency called the poly, worth 100 cents of its own currency; but by agreement a Polythene poly is worth 95 cents in Polydor, & vice versa. which suggests that they are established and ongoing exchange rates. As shown above, this could not continue without resulting in ruin for the countries/banks etc. As such, it would never happen. If there is a small difference in rates (such as when the Irish punt was remove from parity with the English pound) then you will find businesses on one side of the border willing to accept notes from the other side of the border, but giving change in the local currency. Businesses on the other side of the border will not reciprocate (unless their mark-ups) are sufficient to ensure they can still make a profit even taking into account their loss on the exchange. In order for the transaction to work as set, each innkeeper would need to keep a stock of the 'lower-valued' notes to give as change. Where is he going to get these if the customers insist on using the 'higher value' notes? Suppose the two innkeepers know one another, and decide to meet at the border to exchange unwanted currency after visit from this miraculous drinker. Neither is going to accept that they must take a loss on the deal by giving 105 to get 100. Even if they agree to exchange the notes at parity (100 for 100) they will quickly realise (as readers of "weekend" failed to) that this situation could not continue as it was costing them money. A similar thing happened in UK (at least twice) when we went off the 'gold standard' people quickly retained gold sovereigns, while spending the paper money which was seen to have lower value. Similarly, in the 1970s it was realised that UK silver coinage was of more value (for its metal content) than the face value of the coins. A local Chines gift shop was buying any pre-1947 silver coins at 8 times face value. Staff in banks (and here I speak from first hand knowledge) quickly realised that it took only a few minutes to sort through £100 in 'silver' and extract any pre-'47 coins.These were replaced by an equal value in notes from ones pocket (often checked by a colleague), and the coins then 'cashed in' at the Chinese gift shop, to see a tidy profit. It almost became a competition to see who would serve those businesses known to bank a lot of coins. See Gresham's law |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Mr Red Date: 11 Jan 14 - 06:09 AM It don't make cents I'll get my (polythene) coat........... |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 11 Jan 14 - 12:46 PM MtheGM Not a cop out at all. Assuming the premise is credible at at. It is an accurate description of the situation. The problem states that the money for each country is worth 5 percent more in its own country so the act of carrying the note back over the border increases its value by that much. As was mentioned on this thread it would be easy enough for the bartenders to walk the bills across the border and make the swap themselves, each pocketng a 5% profit, but for some unexplained reason, they are in effect paying the traveler to do that. Why is it unstable? One reason is the question of how each bartender got a till full of bills from the other country to give as change. Either they had made the mistake of taking the foreign money at par or people from the other country took the 5% loss when patronizing the bar. So you might say that whoever took the original loss on the exchange paid for the drinks. But IMHO that would be over complicating things. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST Date: 11 Jan 14 - 02:13 PM If I'd known drinks were involved, I'da walked the fooking money over myself. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Richard Bridge Date: 11 Jan 14 - 02:19 PM See Sprocket, above, for the reason the arithmetic is defective. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 11 Jan 14 - 04:11 PM I don't see Jack Sprocket's post as showing an arithmeticalso much as a philosophical deficiency, Richard. But must admit my eyes might just have glazed over 1ce or 2ce while doing my best to grapple with its intricacies. Heigh-ho... ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 11 Jan 14 - 07:31 PM Sprocket's math has the defect. A money is worth 1.00 in A and 95 in B. B money is worth 1.00 in B and 95 in A. the drink is .05 which is how much more the home currency is than foreign currency in each country. "So Polycytes from Aland goes into a bar in Bland, asks for a B0.05 drink and pays with A1.00. This is worth B0.95 so he receives B0.90 change, not B1.00. He takes his change and buys a drink in Aland, tenders his B0.90, here worth A0.855 and receives either B0.80 or B0.81 change, depending on how the rounding is done." Should be "So Polycytes from Aland goes into a bar in Bland, asks for a B0.05 drink and pays with B1.00. This is worth B1.00 so he receives A1.00 change, which is B95. but when he carries it back to A, is magically, due to the miracle of bad IQ test economics is worth A1.00, and the B1.00 equals he gets as change is worth A.95. " Which begs the question, why didn't he just take 20 of his own currency, exchange it for 20 of the other country's currency at 95 cents to the dollar, go across the border and drink for free. It further begs the question. Who sells drinks for a nickel? |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,ripov Date: 11 Jan 14 - 08:38 PM The Punt/Pound example mentioned above is spurious, the change given (in my experience - although initially I had doubts until the system was explained)) reflects the official exchange rate between the two currencies, and all transactions across the border were approximately equal. But a situation existed (and may still do) in England where although the Scottish and English pounds had equal official value, English shopkeepers would only give 19s 6d value for a Scottish pound note, despite getting £1 value when deposited in their bank. In this case it is easy to see that the extra 6d comes from the pocket of the customer offering the Scottish note, as they do not receive full value for their money. In the example, the dollar has the same value in each currency, so the innkeepers make no loss exchanging notes, again the loss is borne by whichever customers spend currency from the other country. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 12 Jan 14 - 12:50 AM Jack ~~ I carefully pointed out that we were dealing in polys, not dollars; so why do you mention $$? How do you know what 5% of a poly might buy? Or who said it was called a nickel? It happens to be called a gogglethwaite colloquially in Polyese, if you must know. Keep up! ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Musket Date: 12 Jan 14 - 02:38 AM The logic issue is in exchange rates. Not much point on looking further because if there was a default time where one currency was devalued to the other, vice versa applies anyway unless you factor in politically controlled exchange. In which case all bets are off. Does remind me of pre Euro , and drinking in Ireland. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: DMcG Date: 12 Jan 14 - 04:08 AM I think the correct answer was in the first response: it is paid for by whoever is in charge of the exchange rate, so in practice it would be the government or similar. Remember currency isn't actually worth anything in most cases, it's just a pile of pretty paper. So at the each of each day each side has increased the amount of paper printed by the other team and in order to achieve this they have been allowing goods to be exchanged - in this case beverages. Now, the question is why, and what they can do with that pile of paper. And in fact, there is no reason why this should not arise in practice. If a big government wanted to destabilise a smaller one's economy, they could do it this way. Arguably, it is not that far from what happened in the Black Wednesday currency trading in the UK. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 12 Jan 14 - 08:03 AM Deliberate discrepancies do occur in practice, but in free markets, they will (by definition) collapse soon: Either the acting party loses its nerve or goes bankrupt, or the rates will adjust to the desired level. An example is the Swiss Franc, which in 2011 had risen unreasonably high due to the Euro panic; Swiss export companies would not have been able to keep up their businesses for much longer. The Swiss note bank intervened and promised to buy any amount of Euros until the rate would sink to 1.20. Since that very day, the rate is almost exactly 1.20 - the mere promise worked, without significant losses for the Swiss government. Until the next panic ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Musket Date: 12 Jan 14 - 11:38 AM Forgot to mention. A few years ago I was in Azerbaijan. I have a photo of exchange rates outside a bank in Baku. Scottish paper money didn't get as good a rate as English ones. Bearing in mind the huge number of BP employees there, usually based in Aberdeen, this was slightly amusing. There again, a Muslim state with a state owned brewery and a thriving pork market. (White beef, translated from either Azeri or Russian.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 12 Jan 14 - 05:14 PM >>Jack ~~ I carefully pointed out that we were dealing in polys, not dollars; so why do you mention $$? How do you know what 5% of a poly might buy? Or who said it was called a nickel? It happens to be called a gogglethwaite colloquially in Polyese, if you must know.<< You couldn't remember what the currencies were called so you made up unnecessarily confusing names. I tried to use names that every understands. But now you are insisting that that was wrong. It doesn't matter what the currencies are called. My math is the same, and correct. DMcG, I think one you make some good points but on the small scale of one person buying drinks. No one loses and the drinker is being rewarded for carrying the money across the border. At the end of the day both bartenders, cash drawers will balance and "the traveler" will have enjoyed his beverages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 12 Jan 14 - 06:15 PM Your maths might be OK, Jack; but it was your comment about nickelsworths of drink I was responding to. Nickels are irrelevant in relation to the poly. 5% of a poly is called a gogglethwaite. Drinks in Polythene & Polydor cost a gogglethwaite. "You couldn't remember what the currencies were called so you made up unnecessarily confusing names" forbloodystinkingsooth. You rude, officious little interpolator, you! If you want a thread about rates of exchange re the $, start your own. This thread is about the poly-rate. I know becoz I invented it, on MY thread. If you can't accept MY thread as it was created, then go elsewhere, you mannerless gatecrashing little buttinsky. Nobody invited you, with your selfrighteous 'names everyone understands'. You had better understand that rude little intruders are not wanted round here. So get off my thread or I shall set my wife's 7 teddybears on you. And then you'll be sorry. And you better believe it! They spend every evening comparing the # of bottoms each of them has bitten during the day! You'll be next... ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 12 Jan 14 - 06:25 PM It is dawning on me why this "I have met nobody in all these years who could furnish a satisfactory answer." has happened. To you, apparently, accurate and understandable answers are not satisfactory. You must have got many correct answers over the years to such a simple question. Do you simply refuse to accept them. Carry on! I will cease soiling your thread with common sense and logic. |
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Subject: Nice work if you can get in. From: Mysha Date: 12 Jan 14 - 07:53 PM Hi, A nice one. Unfortunately the telling of the problem is a bit fuzzy, which lead to several explanations above. So, let me restate as I read it: A Polythene citizen visits a bar on HIS SIDE OF the border & buys a drink for 5 cents. He pays with a poly note of his own country, and receives in change a Polydor poly note, worth 95 cents in Polythene. He then crosses the border to another bar a few metres the other side, NOW IN POLYDOR buys a 5 cent drink, & pays with the Polydor poly note he has just received in change in Polythene, receiving a Polythene poly note as change. He CROSSES BACK TO HIS OWN COUNTRY AND THEN repeats this ENTIRE process, until, after a while, he sinks insensate right on the border. You may notice that I'm stressing the country he is in. The reason for this is that he always receives a note issued in the country he is not in. For each of those notes, someone must have received that note in the country it was issued, and paid 100 cent for it, crossed the border, and then spent the note for 95 cents. It's those 5 cents that the travellers gains by going the other way: Receiving the note for 95 and spending it for 100. Though the story has a ring of infinite money to it, in reality the money is limited: The whole adventure can only continue as long as there are foreign notes available; notes that someone else paid 5 cents more for than they are worth in their current location. It's those 5 cents that pay the traveller's drinks after he takes the note across the border, so it's the exporters of the notes who in advance paid his drinks for him. (And, indeed, those two barkeeps should have made it a habit to always meet-up after hours to move any foreign notes in their possession back to the issuing side of the border. There would be 5 cent per note in it for them.) Bye, Mysha |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Nigel Parsons Date: 12 Jan 14 - 08:00 PM Part of the original problem seems to assume that each bartender will, at the end of the evening, have a till that balances. This would appear to rely on his till having the correct number of 'polys' to be able to check that the closing number of polys in his till, minus the starting number of 'polys' in his till equate to the total value of drinks sold. Unfortunately, to make this work, he has to assign different values to Polydor polys & Polythene polys. The relative value of these polys is purely a matter of viewpoint. Re-calculate using a "hard" currency which will have realistic exchange rates against both currencies. Once again, THERE IS NO PARADOX IN THE ORIGINAL QUESTION. IT IS BASED ON A FALSE PREMISE! |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Bill the sound Date: 13 Jan 14 - 11:21 AM I would have thought that the barman would exchange one currency for the other himself if there was money to be made |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: GUEST,Stim Date: 13 Jan 14 - 05:12 PM I think Mysha has expressed the problem as it was originally intended. As for the rest of you, it is very clear why there is no money in folk music;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 13 Jan 14 - 05:40 PM I said all of those things and was called a "You rude, officious little interpolator." for it. Mysha of course is correct, having taken the trouble to insert MtheGMs overly same same exchange rate whilst restarting the obvious and accurate interpretation of the problem. The question now is does Mysha have an answer that satisfies the Mudcat Lord of sloppily stated riddles or with Mysha also be judged a "You rude, officious little interpolator." for having provided the right answer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 13 Jan 14 - 06:00 PM You took it on yourself, Jack, to tell me what I really meant and what I should have said. What I meant to say was what I said, and that was what I meant. "You couldn't remember what the currencies were called so you made up unnecessarily confusing names. I tried to use names that every understands." NERVE!!! What warrant do you imagine yourself to have, to patronise me, or correct me, or interpolate your own usages? That was rude, and an unwarrantable intrusion on your part, Jack. If you think it wasn't, then I think you lacking in perception, and in a sense of seemliness. Good night to you. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jeri Date: 13 Jan 14 - 06:24 PM Keyboards at dawn. Googling for vocabulationary armamentation will not be allowed, and the first person to utter "fuck" "shit" or "you're a stinky-butt poop-face" will be disqualified. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 13 Jan 14 - 06:42 PM I thought you were joking about that. You think it rude to restate the problem in other words? OK, I am sorry for intruding and not understanding that sensitivity of yours. I am also sorry for the comments I made in jest in response to your over the top complaints. However, I must say that if you don't want "interlopers" you shouldn't pose the question on an open forum. That practice also is rude. If this is not a joke it is pretty rude. >>Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MtheGM - PM Date: 12 Jan 14 - 12:50 AM Jack ~~ I carefully pointed out that we were dealing in polys, not dollars; so why do you mention $$? How do you know what 5% of a poly might buy? Or who said it was called a nickel? It happens to be called a gogglethwaite colloquially in Polyese, if you must know. Keep up! ~M~ << BTW as far as I know five cents is nickel everywhere they count money in cents. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: Jack the Sailor Date: 13 Jan 14 - 06:53 PM Good one Jeri. This not being impolite is more difficult than I thought. At least it wasn't on purpose. |
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Subject: RE: BS: IQ problem has bugged me for many years From: MGM·Lion Date: 14 Jan 14 - 12:44 AM One trouble with a written/printed medium is that it often difficult to recognise when humour or irony may be intended when there are no vocal tones or facial expressions to give an indication. Very sorry if I failed therefore to recognise that you were not being entirely serious, Jack. Apologies if my ironically meant animadversion [as eg invention of absurd term gogglethwaite] did not come over to you as not intended with complete earnestness, like my threats that my wife's teddybears might bite you on the bum if you didn't butt out [joke, geddit?]. Seriously, Jack. None of above paragraph intended ironically or aggressively. Genuinely sorry for the mutual misunderstanding. Must give my SOH an airing & a polish! Best ~M~ |
