The Glade 4.0

If you solve a riddle, post a riddle.

Rules:

1) Need to make sure you're correct. So, folks can post guesses to the answer, but the person who posted the riddle must choose the winner. OR, if the guess is obviously correct, another poster can /concur and you don't need to wait for the original poster to verify.
2) There can be multiple answers to some riddles. Any valid answer should suffice.
3) All riddles must be solvable. No "what's in my pocket" questions, or retarded questions that could have a billion answers (why did the chicken cross the road?).
4) Riddle is valid for 24 hours, or until solved. Don't make them too hard, or you're just going to stall the thread for 24 hours.

Begin!

I lie between the smallest of particles. Dead men eat me, live men who eat me die slowly.

The answer is nothing

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The person who makes this, doesn't need it. The person who buys it, doesn't use it. The person who uses it, never sees it.

What am I?

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

A casket.

I can't recall any riddles. So somebody else can go.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Three prisoners. Two see normally, one is blind.
The warden brings them into a barren, concrete walled, room.
He (the warden) has a box with him. In the box he has 2 red hats, and three white hats.
The seeing prisoners are blindfolded.
The warden places a hat on each prisoner.
The warden says that a prisoner who can tell what color the hat on his head is may go free.
The blindfold is taken of the first seeing prisoner.
"What is the color?" the Warden asks.
"I can not say" answers the first prisoner.
The blindfold is taken of the second seeing prisoner.
"What is the color?" the Warden asks.
"I can not say" answers the second prisoner.
Then the warden asks the blind prisoner "what is the color of the hat on your head?"
The blind prisoner replies "following the answers of the first two seeing prisoners, I know the color of the hat on my head is .........

I stole this off the interwebs, but was told this a long time ago. No cheating!

The hat is white.

I believe it's still Foamy's turn, though, pending confirmation from Arathain that his answer was correct.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Fairly certain my answer to Arathain's is correct.

That said, I posted a riddle and Vindi was correct. My turn is over.

Additionally, I'd like to see the "work" on the hat riddle.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

He posted a riddle, and it was answered I believe. Vindi said he didn't have any and for someone else to take a turn.

Arathain posted the first riddle. Foamy and Vindi both gave answers. While I concur with Shelgeyr that Foamy's probably got it right, Arathain's supposed to verify, by the proposed rules.

In any event, the answer to the hat one is fun. It's tempting to treat it as a symmetrical problem, but it's not. The second prisoner has one extra bit of information: the first prisoner's answer.

The first prisoner cannot see two red hats. If he had, he'd know that his own was white. In order to answer "I don't know," either both the second and third prisoners' hats are white, or one was white and one was red.

The second prisoner also cannot see two red hats, or else he would have answered. However, if the blind prisoner's hat is red, he will know that the first prisoner did not see two red hats, and thus, his own hat is white, and he can answer. Thus, again, either both the hats he can see are white, or the blind prisoner's hat is white and the first prisoner's is red.

Therefore, the third, blind prisoner must know that his own hat cannot be red. If his own hat were red, one or the other of them would have answered.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

No lie, my brain gets all tied up in a knot trying to follow along with this answer. These type of puzzles always lose me and I can't seem to keep track of what facts are known and not known to be able to puzzle out the answer.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

To keep the thread going, I will go out of turn and present another...

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Okay. Let me try it again, this time, breaking it down into a few more steps.

At any point, if somebody sees two red hats, all the red hats are used up, so the viewer must be wearing a white hat. If not all red hats are accounted for, the viewer's hat could be either color (because there's a red hat that's not visible, and could thus be on his own head, and there are enough white hats to go around even if all the viewer sees are white hats).

Now, the first prisoner's reply is that he doesn't know what his hat is. Thus, he did not see two red hats. He might have seen one red and one white (with the red on either of the other prisoners), or he might have seen two white hats.

The second prisoner could deduce this from the first prisoner's answer.

We'll do a hypothetical now. If the blind prisoner's hat was red, there are now two possibilities for the second prisoner to see and consider:
The second prisoner would see the blind prisoner's red hat, and either a red or a white hat on the first prisoner.

a) If the first prisoner's hat was also red, he would immediately know, as before, that his own hat was white because there were no more red hats left.

b) If the first prisoner's hat was white and the blind prisoner's hat was red, then the second prisoner could recall that the first prisoner did not guess that his own hat was white, which he would have done if the first prisoner saw two red hats (meaning the blind and the second prisoner both wore red hats). In this instance, the second prisoner would know that his own hat is white (because if the blind prisoner's hat was red, and the first prisoner didn't answer, the second prisoner's hat could not also be red).

So, if the blind prisoner's hat is red, and the first prisoner does not know, then the second prisoner will know, one way or the other.

However, we can do away with our hypothetical. The second prisoner did not know, either, even though he would certainly know his hat's color if the blind prisoner's hat were red.

Thus, the blind prisoner knows that his own hat must be white, because that's the only scenario that would stump both the other prisoners.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

If you put 4 on one side and 4 on the other, and they are even then you know that it is the ball in your hand that is the heavy one. If they are not even, you know it's not the ball in your hand and you can discard it. Now you've used the scales once, and you are left with 8 balls.

That's as far as I can get.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Weigh two groups of 3 balls each. If they balance, we'll use the 3 we didn't weigh in the next step. If they don't, we'll use the heavier set of 3 next.

Choose 2 balls out of the selected set. Weigh them against each other. If they balance, the unweighed ball is heavy. If they don't, well, it's obvious.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Kaffis, you're good at this.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Kaffis nailed it...

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

And that's also not a riddle.

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Whoever makes it, tells it not.
Whoever takes it, knows it not.
Whoever knows it, wants it not.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm better at logic and math than wordplay, FWIW.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Counterfeit money

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Indeed, shuyung.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says "Thank you" and walks out.

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he had the hiccups. The water was to cure them, but the gun scared them away


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A man lives in the top floor of a 30 story building. Every morning, he rides the elevator to the first floor and gets out. Every evening he rides the elevator to the 16th floor and walks the rest of the way up, unless there is someone else in the elevator with him in which case he rides to the 30th floor.

Why?

TheRiov, you're not very good at following directions.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Nobody seems very good at following directions...

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Damn. I thought the answer was a roofie.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.