wild_turkey_willie

On television I recently watched part of an outdoor concert from a park somewhere in Europe, but I was unable to identify the orchestra or location. One of the works performed was a march, and at various times the audience briefly clapped together rhythmically with the music and whistled sharply. Is there a specific piece of music during which the audience traditionally participates in this way (similar to their standing at the end of the Messiah)? If so, what is the march? Or is this a more general reaction to such festive performances? Is this done throughout Europe or only in certain locations or counties? Thank you for sharing your knowledge and information with me.

I just watched this excellent mystery movie with Audrey Hepburn (who is stunningly attractive) and Cary Grant. In it a number of people are looking for a valuable treasure which turns out to be three rare postage stamps. They are described as a Swedish 4 shilling from 1854 (it is a red stamp), a Hawaiian Blue three cent stamp, and what I believe they call a Gazak Moldov, which is blue with Russian writing, the number 82, and a picture of a bull's head.

Here is a clip from the movie, where the stamps are described and shown close-up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9O1VVeMzhc

First, are these actual rare stamps?

Second, in the movie, which was made in 1963, their values are given as $85,000, $65,000, and $100,000, respectively.

If they are real, how much are they worth today in 2014?

Thanks for indulging my curiosity!

I have an HP Compaq laptop using Windows XP. It is an older machine, but I like it very much.

I recently increased its memory from 500M to 2G. The computer detects the new memory, so I am confident that I installed it correctly, but I am a little disappointed because I am not noticing very much difference in the computer's performance.

What modifications, if any, can I make to my settings to take best advantage of the new memory and improve the computer's performance?

If you add together the scores of all the games in each series, the Yankees outscored the Tigers 28 to 17, Tampa Bay outscored Texas 21 to 16, the Phillies outscored the Cardinals 21 to 19, and Arizona outscored Milwaukee 25 to 23 (and Arizona won only one game of the series!)

I just point this out as a curious result - I have no opinion on its significance. (Maybe, that everyone will win a few blowouts now and then, but you need to win the close games to survive?)

What do you think?

This is how it works-

You are given an alphabetical list of ordinary English words. You have to resort the words of this list into pairs in such a way that, for each pair, all the letters of both words can be put together and rearranged to spell the name of a U.S. city with population of at least 100,000. Each given word is used in one and only one pair. Here is a brief demonstration starting with these six words:

(Example)

all

chin

dorm

gals

sad

save

They can be combined and rearranged like this:

all + sad --> Dallas

chin + dorm --> Richmond

gals + save --> Las Vegas

Now here is the real puzzle list of twenty words. Please include both words along with the city name you make from them for each pair you solve. I will show how to get a maximum score of ten cities (if nobody has already found them) on the last day before voting, and I will choose the best answer then. Here goes, and good luck!

ache

argon

cameo

cask

dimes

flings

gory

haven

loam

lob

moment

mucus

nose

plant

pride

rail

rants

rod

sanity

sill

This is not a question about math, but a question about you. I enjoy reading the questions posted here and I like to figure out the problems that I find interesting. Sometimes I post my solutions, but I am usually not the first answerer because I like to make sure that my posting is clear and is stated as simply, but thoroughly, as possible. (I also take time to double-check to be certain that it is correct!). I try to post answers that demonstrate that solving math problems doesn't require a lot of memorization or possession of obscure, secret facts, but can be done with correct and expeditious use of the facts the questioners probably already know. In other words, I invest a lot of time forming my postings, and I'm proud of most of them. They are for everyone else who reads and answers the questions, not just the questioners.

However, during the past couple of weeks, over a dozen times I have submitted an answer, only to find that the question has been deleted by the questioner a few minutes after it is answered. This has happened twice already this evening. Why? Do people just want to save the five points that asking costs them? Are teachers checking Answers to catch students who don't do their own homework? I cannot really see a good reason for deleting a legitimate question and its answers after it is posted, and I am discouraged from spending my time composing future solutions. Give me some insight on this. I welcome responses from all who care to comment

I want to find web sites with very detailed baseball statistics. I can easily find batting averages, home runs, earned run averages, etc., but are there web sites that list major league statistics like triple plays or steals of home, or sites where I can search box scores year by year for such statistics? Thanks for any info you can provide.

1. (Easy) Find a set of two consecutive integers whose sum is equal to the next integer immediately following them.

2. Find a set of three consecutive integers whose sum is equal to the sum of the next two consecutive integers immediately following them.

3. Find a set of four consecutive integers whose sum is equal to the sum of the next three consecutive integers immediately following them.

4. Given any n > 1, is it always possible to find a set of n consecutive integers whose sum is equal to the sum of the next n - 1 consecutive integers immediately following them?

When such a sequence of integers exists for some n, where does the sequence begin, i.e. what is the smallest integer in the first sum?

Since the gravitational force exerted by a body is proportional to its mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the body, at this point

mass of sun/(dist. fr. sun)^2 = mass of earth/(dist. fr. earth)^2, or mass of sun/mass of earth = (dist. fr. sun/dist. fr. earth)^2.

My references all say that mass of sun/mass of earth = 333000, so dist. from sun/dist. from earth = sqroot(333000) = 577.

Then the equilibrium point is 1/578 of the distance between the earth and the sun = 93000000 / 578 = 161000 miles from earth. (Is this okay so far?)

But the moon is always at least 225000 miles from earth, so when it orbits between the earth and the sun, moving in a direction perpendicular to the gravitational pull of both, it is beyond the equilibrium point and the sun is pulling on it harder than the earth is. At these times, why wouldn't the sun tear the moon out of earth orbit? My argument must contain an error - please show me where I have gone wrong. Thanks!

Use the numbers 1, 3, 4, and 6 EXACTLY one time each.

Use only these symbols +, -, *, /, (, ) (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, parentheses) but use each as many times as you want.

Create an expression that is equal to 24.

The first answer that satisfies these conditions wins!

I have a Lexmark X-5150 printer. (It's a 3 - in - 1 combination printer - scanner - fax). While I was printing something, a sheet of paper went through the printer crooked. The page printed O.K. (but at an angle), and then I got a message saying the printer was jammed. I opened it and didn't find anything jamming it (the crooked paper had gone all the way through the printer). Now, when I try to print anything, the printer accepts the paper and it runs through, it sounds just like it should when it is printing, but it comes out blank, with nothing printed on it. The cartridges are only a few days old and have ink in them. The computer does not indicate there are now any problems with the printer. I have gone through the troubleshooting procedures that came with the printer software and I have tried to print test pages, but they always come out blank.

I think that the crooked sheet of paper damaged something in the printer, and I would appreciate any help in fixing it.

Here's an example:

It happens that tomorrow's money line on the Yankee - Mariner game is New York -175, Seattle +165. Now suppose that you and I both go to a sports book in Las Vegas and I take the Yankees and you take the Mariners.

If the Yankees win, you lose $100 and I win $100.

If the Mariners win, I lose $175 and you win $165.

Now here's my question: Assuming that there is an equal amount of betting support for each team, it looks to me like the sports book makes money on this type of bet only when the underdog wins. Is this true? If not, how does the book make money when the favorite wins?

Let point F and line d be the focus and directrix of a parabola. Choose any line through F which intersects the parabola in two points A and B. There is a line tangent to the parabola at A and another tangent line at B. Let C be the intersection of these two tangents.

Show (prove) each of the following statements:

1) C always lies on d (the directrix).

2) AC and BC (the two tangent lines) are always perpendicular.

3) FC and AB are always perpendicular.

I have already proven these a couple of ways and I'm not looking for detailed proofs - just let me know how you approached the problem and if you were successful. Did you use analytic geometry or not? Did you incidentally discover any other interesting facts while working on this? Do you know any other similar interesting problems?

Hint - Remember that rays which enter a parabola parallel to its axis reflect off the parabola toward its focus, and conversely, rays emitted from the focus reflect out parallel to the axis.

Words which have different meanings and, possibly, different spellings, but which are pronounced alike are called homophones. The following are examples of homophones:

(a) to, too, and two

(b) our and hour

(c) earn and urn

(d) right, write, and rite

etc.

There is a legitimate English word which, if you remove its first letter, leaves another legitimate English word which is a homophone of the original. Furthermore, if you put back the first letter and remove the second letter from the original word, you obtain yet a third homophone of the other two words. All three words are common English words which you might very well use daily.

Can you figure out what the three words are?

If you write the names of the positive integers in English words, ("one", "two", "three", "four", etc.) what is the smallest number that contains all the vowels a,e,i,o,u,and y?

A blonde electrician.

Grandma is getting ready to go back home after visiting her grandchildren. She wants to give each of them $25 before she leaves, but when she looks into her purse, she discovers that she has $10 less than she needs to do this. So she gives each grandchild $20 and returns home with $25 in her purse. How many grandchildren does Grandma have?

10 points to the first correct answer with a reasonably clear explanation of how you got it.

As soon as I turn my computer on, this page now appears (it never did this before). For completeness, I am including everything on the page:

American Megatrends Released 05/15/02

AMBIOS (c) 2001 American Megatrends, Inc.

P4VMM2 Release 05/15/2002

Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU, 2 GHz

DEL: Setup F8: Boot Menu F12: Network Boot

Pri Slave- Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace

Press F1 to Resume

(c) American Megatrends, Inc.,

62-0515-0011331-00101111-040201-VIA_P6-P4VMM2

The computer completely stops here until I hit the F1 key, and then Windows XP Pro, which I am running, starts up as it always has, and runs pretty normally. But this looks like a BIOS problem to me, not a Windows problem. Can you explain to me what is going on and what might have caused it, tell me whether or not I might be facing a total computer catastrophe, and advise me what, if anything, I can or should do about it. Thank you very much for any information you can offer.

Here are some sandwiches that taste good (at least I think so) and are easy to make -- (As you can see, I like peanut butter and I like cream cheese. I also like the nutty flavor of cracked wheat or multi-grain bread.) --

--Peanut butter and sliced-up peppers - anything from sweet green peppers to jalapenos (or hotter!) will work.

--Bacon, tomato, and peanut butter on toast - delicious!

--Peanut butter, your favorite sliced cheese, and green olives.

--Broiled or grilled portabella mushrooms (use the big ones - they will shrink when you cook them) with cream cheese (I like cream cheese with onion for this, but plain cream cheese is good, too) and lettuce (Don't omit the lettuce! It's just not the same without the flavor and texture of lettuce!) on toasted bread.

--Liverwurst and cream cheese with a big slice of sweet onion on a bagel.

Now, I want to try your favorite sandwiches, too!

Which of the following are good rivers and which are bad rivers?

a) Nile

b) Ganges

c) Thames

d) Missouri

e) Amazon

f) Volga