Welcome to your weekly installment of V’s Riddle Corner. Each Friday evening I’ll provide you with a few riddles to earn you some Tanga Points, and perhaps even a few links to waste some time. The links will tend to be to interesting facts or fun videos, while the puzzles will frequently be based in logic or maths (gasp!). So, without further adieu…

Wastes of Time:

Waste of Time (An oldie, I know)

Fun to watch

“I wish I could do this”:
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2007/08/alpha_male.html

Riddle 1: The owner of the local bank found a $50 bill lying in the gutter; he picked it up and made a note of its serial number. Later that day his wife mentioned that they owed the butcher $50, so the banker used the bill he’d found to settle up with the butcher. The butcher used it to pay a farmer; the farmer in turned used it to pay his feedstock supplier; and the feedstock supplier used it to pay his laundry bill. The laundryman used it to pay off his $50 overdraft at the local bank. The banker recognized the bill as being the one he had found in the gutter, but also noticed, on closer examination, that it was a fake. By now, it had been used to settle $250 worth of debts. What was lost?

This is an interesting question, as some people will take a different view of things than others, and so in that sense there may not be a truly clear answer. So 15 points total will be awarded to those contributing to a disucssion of this situation.

Riddle 2: Imagine that a barber in a small town puts up a sign in the shop that reads: “I shave all those men, and ONLY those men, who do not shave themselves.” We can divide the males in this town into two groups, those who shave themselves, and those who are shaved by the barber. To which group does the barber himself belong? What causes this paradox? Find an original trick to solve this paradox! FTP5

That’s all for today, folks. See you next week!

-V