Question 1:
The easiest was the Tom, Dick and Harry one.

Harry, earning more than the manager, cannot be the manager, nor the teller (that earns the least.) Therefore Harry is the Cashier.

Tom cannot be the teller, as he has a sister. Since Harry is the Cashier, that makes Tom the manager.

Dick is the teller by default. Sucks to be him, being poorest paid.

Total Time: 2 minutes, using a neato match-chart.

Question 2:
65 sides, by my calculation.

5 on each short side x two short sides = 10
25 on each long side x two long sides = 50
5 on the top x 1 top = 5

Total = 65

I did this by making a little engineering plan style drawing.

Total time: 2 min.

Question 3:
This fucking compactor/cube problem was the worst.

x is the edge size of the older compactor, and y is the edge size of the newer compactor.

We're told x > y and x and y are integers.

The volume of each cube is x^3 and y^3.

Each cube has twelve edges, so the total length of all the edges on both cubes is 12x + 12y.

Some asshole observed the following:
x3 + y3 = 12x + 12y

I spent much misery in algebra, attempting to get this down to something edible. My misery was unconstrained.

Among many others, I can make it all of the following:
x(x2 -12) + y(y2 -12) = 0

x3 / (x+y) + y3 / (x+y) = 12

and my personal favorite manipulation:

x4 + y4 + x^3y + xy3 -12 = 0

at this point, I became stuck, and brute forced it. (I have a feeling the last equation above is readily solvable. I got fed up, and realized that there aren't that many integral candidates that even potentially would work.)

x = 4, y = 2 satisfies the initial equation.
4^3 + 2^3 = 12(4+2)
64 + 8 = 72 = 12*6

Total time? 30 fucking minutes.

Who the fuck "notices... that the combined volumes of one cube from each compactor was numerically the same as the combined length of all their edges." I work in a lab, a real scientific lab, and can guarantee such a situation never happens. Nor will it ever happen. I mean, really, this has no business being a word problem. Fucking stupid. I'm glad she lost.

Why not play a little Air Milf?

Take to the skies with Alaska's governor and eliminate those pesky wolves for big cash.

Go for the high score!!!

Also in my top 10.

Me too.

Dream no longer. Watch it here. Excelsior!

After seeing these stills, I have faith in the new Star Trek movie.

We might be starting the next Great Depression, but I'll at least have one thing to look forward to next Spring.

If it's like what they did to Indy? Well:

Or, may it please be like this:

Time spent Googling the latest campaign news or searching for choice eBay buys may help stimulate and improve the minds of middle-aged and older Americans, UCLA scientists suggest. Research reported in next month's American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry is the first to assess how performing Internet searches influences brain activity in older Americans, says study author Gary Small, professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.

The research included 24 healthy volunteers ages 55 to 76. Half had Internet-searching experience, and the others had none. All were asked to perform Web searches and book-reading tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, which recorded the brain-circuitry changes they were experiencing.

All of the volunteers showed significant brain activity during the reading task, which stimulated brain regions that control language, reading, memory and visual abilities.

But during Internet searches, major differences flared up between the two groups, Small says. Only those who had previous Web-search experience registered extensive activity in decision-making and complex-reasoning portions of the brain.

"Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading, but only in those people with prior Internet experience," Small says. He is also co-author of iBrain (HarperCollins, 2008), which was released on Tuesday and explores how older Americans can keep up with younger generations in an increasingly technological world.

Small says that over time, he'd expect the inexperienced Internet searchers to benefit as well.

A more in-depth analysis from Newsweek, after the jump:

According to the preview above, the forthcoming BoneTown will be a landmark in bridging the worlds of pornography and video games. It also offers amazingly hideous stereotypes of women, men, African-Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Indians, and, uh, Ron Jeremy (who at least participated willingly.)

Happy wanking, nerds.

(Audio NSFW, visuals OK.)

Nerds are conservative? That's silly.

Comics are apolitical? Also silly.

Well, yesterday, comics fansite Newsarama posted a story about Comics Industry for Obama, including an interview with CIfO founder Eric Powell, the creator of The Goon, which is a very funny comic book. Many of the comments on the story—I'm pretty sure a majority of them—prove my point:

Wow, more media and artists bringing their political agenda into their work (where it usually doesn't belong). I'm shocked. Whether you like Obama or not, the media is so clearly biased on his behalf, it isn't even funny. Actually, it is the opposite of funnyl. I guess this bothers me a lot less than having actual journalists who are supposed to present the facts or both sides of an issue being in the tank for one candidate, but it is essentially more of the same.

Well, I guess I won't be reading the Goon or the Savage Dragon anymore. Adios.

Democrat, Republican, they're just different sides of the same coin. Wake up people.

I want to know something,Mccain and Obama have never clearly stated their plan to help ease the economy. Both fuddle their words and give no concrete answers.

Ask Obama what he plans to do to heal the economy. This is his reply "time for a change" "it is not about me,but what you can do for everybody" Catch phrases are cute,but they are not an answer to a serious problem

Eric Powell is a pig who'd better watch his back when this is all over.

But this one is my favorite:

Yogsothoth wrote:

NADER/GONZALES 08!

Yes, the dark gods of Cthulhu demand you vote for Ralph Nader.

I think this is unprecedented. Comic books are usually a fairly apolitical field because lots of comics fans tend to be conservative, but now there's a social network called Comics Industry for Obama. Members include Mike Allred, who created a comic called Madman and also a comic book adaptation of The Book of Mormon, and Mike Mignola, who created Hellboy. The site is for fans and comic pros alike, and its tagline is "Let's make sure the good guy wins." Awww. Also, they have a nice logo. But this doesn't mean you have to suddenly start thinking Hellboy II was a good movie.

Also weird and new to this election cycle: Gamers for Obama. One blog reads:

We need to find ways to help Barack Obama, not simply in the real world, but in the virtual world. We need to create our own echo chamber where we can answer the lies, answer the distortions head on.

We also need to find ways to test messages and understand just how tough a job organizing is and find more effective ways to organize.

I think maybe they got the real world/virtual world bit mixed up, but still: it's nice to see geeks doing their part and being more vocal about politics than they usually are.

If you don't get it, you should immediately forget about it: you'll never understand.

Or it ended with this.

It's been an ugly, injury-filled season so far, and plenty of matchups were turned upside down when star players like Tom Brady or, well, Tom Brady went down with season-ending injuries. And it's only going to get worse, especially for the Thunderdome teams that drafted from the once-reliable Seahawks receiving corps.

Here are the scores:

The Green Giants barely squeaked out a win, beating Bwee&Gwee's Dingbats 88-86.

The Tight Ends squeezed out a 72-54 win over Hasselbeck's Hairline.

The Ahmadinejad Show shot down Hochuli's Guns with a 97-70 win.

The Slogaholics subjugated the Rightwing Feminists, 76-69

My Thunderbolts were still able to overpower the New Orleans Taints 76-67, despite the fact that I started an inactive Deuce McAlister and a totally useless Laveranues Coles.

and El Swinger's Evergreen Stoners absolutely stomped Wisepunk's Spikers, with a final score of 110 to 52.

The final standings (ranked by points scored):
1. Evergreen Stoners
2. The Ahmadinejad Show
3. Green Giants
4. Hass's Thunderbolts
5. Slogaholics
6. The Tight Ends
7. Bwee&Gwee's Dingbats
8. Hochuli's Guns
9. Rightwing Feminists
10. New Orleans Taints
11. Hasselbecks Hairline
12. Wise's Spikers

As for other football news, the Seahawks just signed a few free agent receivers to make up for the holes in our roster. The 'Hawks also cut punter Ryan Plackemeier and, in the biggest bonehead move so far this season, released this guy:

...who was immediately snatched up by the Colts. Ugh.

Next week, the Hawks play a divisional game against the 49ers. Predictions, gripes, etc in the comments.

USA Today says that a woman has been arrested for attempting to abduct a man she met on Second Life. Though they were apparently passionately involved as avatars in the pointless online video game, after they met once in real life the man dumped the woman. She was spotted outside the man's home last Thursday "with a stun gun, handcuffs and duct tape," and she tried to flee when the man called police.

In other, unrelated nerd, Virgin Comics appears to have shut down. Virgin Comics was a comic book company created by egomaniac Richard Branson. I think that maybe one American, total, has read a Virgin Comic. The entire line looked painfully generic and was relying on celebrities to make people interested. Here's PW's description of Virgin:

The company produced a series of periodical comics based on Gotham Entertainment’s Shakti line of comics. The venture also included the Director’s Cut line, featuring comics series created by such Hollywood figures as Ed Burns (Dock Walloper), Guy Ritchie (Gamekeeper) and John Woo (Seven Brothers), which the company expected to morph into blockbuster films. The company’s Voices line of comics emphasized projects created by actors and musicians including Nicholas Cage (Voodoo Child); porn star Jenna Jamison (Shadow Hunter) and British musician Dave Stewart (Zombie Broadway).

Remember, kids: Don't name your comic book company "Virgin"—some fanboys get kind of agitated around that word—and if you want to kidnap a Second Life mate, be sure that you kidnap them in Second Life. The law's a lot hazier regarding online kidnappery.