What's going on with me?

11-26-05 - I would like to point out that if you don't care about the solution to the problem, then you should read the problem itself, then skim down to where it says "Here's the breakdown" and read from there.

On a friend's blog site, he posted the following problem:

Five men and a monkey are stranded on an island. They spend the day gathering coconuts and place them in one pile to divide evenly the next day. During the night, the first man, afraid of being cheated, gets up, goes to the pile and takes his share. There is one coconut left over after the division, and he gives it to the monkey. Later, a second man wakes, has the same plan, goes to the pile (now smaller) and takes his share of the pile. After the division, there is one coconut left over, and he gives it to the monkey. As so it goes throughout the night until the fifth man does the same during the night.

The next morning, they go to the pile and notice that it is smaller, but no man says anything as each man was afraid as he knew that he personally had taken some. They take the remaining pile and divide it evenly among them. How many coconuts were in the original pile?
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This puzzle first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, 1926. Williams, the creator, did not include the answer and the Post was bombarded by over 2000 letters demanding the answer. The editor sent Williams a wire: "FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE, HOW MANY COCONUTS? HELL POPPING AROUND HERE."

We all had algebra, right? Just let n be the number of original coconuts........how hard could it be?
FYI, they did not have spreadsheets or computers in 1926!

I decided to take this problem on.

I will first say that I had a bit of help, by looking at the solution to a similar problem, from a math site.

I will secondly say it is completely sad that I spend my long weekend doing things like this.

The actual solution to this is beautiful. I thought, at first, that the problem was much too ambiguous and that there could be two solutions, depending on how you looked at it. At the end, do they divide the pile 5 ways (just the men) or 6 ways (including the monkey)? It turns out that this doesn't matter.

Your basic function is f(x) = 0.8 (x - 1). I wrote 4/5 as 0.8 for clarity, as equations in text can get messy. Five iterations of this must take place to get your result, which means that you need to find f(f(f(f(f(x))))). This simply means that the result of one iteration is the input of the next. This answer, then, must be equal to either 5k or 6k, where k is the number each person gets in the morning. The numbers 5 and 6 are the ambiguity coefficients - the number of piles into which the morning pile must be divided.

After simplifying, you get that f(f(f(f(f(x))))) = (1024 x - 8404) / 3125. It's ugly getting here, but that's a simple equation. The trouble is not only finding a value for x that will yield an integer, but one that's either divisible by 5 or 6.

The first such integer is 3121. What's more is that the integer yields a result that is divisible by 5 and 6! (That's not 6 factorial, that's actual excitement in mathematics.)

Here's the breakdown: The first number is the total each party gets if the pile is divided into 5 piles at the end and the second number is for 6 piles at the end.

Man 1 - 828 -- 794
Man 2 - 703 -- 669
Man 3 - 603 -- 569
Man 4 - 523 -- 489
Man 5 - 459 -- 425
Monkey - 5 -- 175

Why anyone would want that many coconuts is beyond me. Assuming they could survive for an extended periond on coconuts along, at some point you'd think they'd want to eat something other than a coconut, but that's beside the point. Above is the breakdown of coconut wealth per man.

Whether the morning pile was divided into 5 or 6 piles at the end, though, is purely based on the relationship the men have with the monkey. Seeing as how they were all polite enough to give the monkey a coconut whilst stealing their portions, I would venture a guess and say they were all quite fond of the fun little guy, and the morning pile was divided into 6 piles.

Some monkeys do know ways to communicate with humans, though, and maybe the men wanted the monkey to die, since he saw all. While it's true that every man stole, some men stole more than others, which would lead to some mean fighting among the former friends. If the monkey only had 5 coconuts, he would surely die before long. Five piles.

...or so the men think. If the monkey was smart enough to communicate what he had seen, then he would surely be smart enough to be able to steal coconuts without the victim knowing. To prevent the monkey from stealing from the same person all the time (which he might do if he could get away with it), they gave the monkey his own coconuts. Six piles.

Of course, each coconut that each man gave the monkey could have been a bribe to keep his mouth shut about what he saw. Five piles.

We all know that monkeys don't keep secrets. Six piles.

Also, unless they forgot the information in their sleep, each of the first four men would easily be able to determine that at least one person after him also stole some coconuts, as the pile would have to be counted one more time (and the total would more than likely be announced) to be able to divide the coconuts evenly. Restart by placing all coconuts back into the big pile.

Well, to admit to the knowledge is to admit to stealing coconuts. Keep it at six piles...and move on. There's no way to know, and it doesn't matter.

So above, you have the mathematical solution. What really bothers me about this problem, though, is, well...everything.

First off, the problem states that the original pile of coconuts is just that: one pile. That thing must be absolutely huge. For each man to successfully be able to count all of the coconuts, he would have to be able to grab the coconuts from the pile without collapsing the pile, and start another pile without collapsing it, as well. This would require slow movements in taking and stacking coconuts.

The first man had 3121 coconuts to count. Now, the base of the first pile had to have been fairly wide, which means that he'd have to restack the coconuts with a wide base. The second pile would've had to have the center of its base at least one full base diameter (one and a half would be safe) away from the center of the base of the original pile in order for the piles not to run together, resulting in the man losing count and having to start over, which would consist of moving all of the coconuts back to their original pile (or moving the rest of the coconuts from the original pile to the new pile, if he was visibly more than halfway through).

Now once the man has finished counting the big pile, he must not only count his own share into another separate pile, but he has to move that pile far enough away to where the other men won't see it. This whole process of waking up, quietly and carefully counting the total number of coconuts, recounting the portion to keep, and then moving that portion far enough out of the way (assuming he didn't have the help of a wheelbarrow or something similar, as well as not having the help of the monkey because, let's face it, the monkey would want more than one coconut for helping to move a huge pile of them) would definitely take hours. And that (admittedly very rough) time estimate is not figuring fatigue.

The time would probably double if fatigue was considered. If the man doing his work decided to lie down and rest for a bit, that's just wasted time. No other man could start his job until the previous man finished his.

While the big pile gets smaller with each iteration, it would still take on the order of hours per man to do the job. You also have to assume that at least one of them is sloth-like and takes much longer to do things than the others...but of course, one would probably be quicker, which would almost even out...unless the slow man was the first one and the quick one was the last one...

After each man finished and lies down to go to sleep, there is some dead time, because for some people it takes a while to get to sleep, and the next man doesn't want to get up and get started with the previous guy still trying to sleep. Also, each man probably doesn't wake up the very second the previous man falls asleep. More dead time.

Basically, this whole charade would probably take on the order of a day to complete. For all of this to occur in one night, this even would have to take place in Alaska or somewhere similar, where coconuts don't grow. This leads me to believe that coconuts migrate. Also, the men must have had an exhausting day the day before, if all of them were to sleep during this whole ordeal.

Finally, none of the men could be allowed to be intimidated by math, which means they are somewhat smart. This leads me to believe that the men are of any nationality but American.

11-25-05 - Today is Black Friday. Today is the biggest shopping day of the year. Stores that are open 24 hours may not offer savings on hot items until a few hours into the day, but Black Friday is all day.

I'd never bought anything on Black Friday before, as far as I can recall. I'm not only talking about things at a retail store - that statement was all-encompassing. I have never bought a single thing on Black Friday.

I realized this fact whilst talking to someone Wednesday night. I told her that my goal was not only to buy something on Black Friday, but to be among the first in the nation to buy something on Black Friday. You can only achieve that in the Eastern time zone.

For the past few weeks, I've been meaning to buy some new winter gloves, but every time I looked somewhere, I couldn't find any that were thinner than approximately 3 feet thick. My goal was to waltz into Wal-Mart, find some good gloves immediately, and then buy them shortly after midnight.

So I set the alarm on my phone for 11:30 pm, because I didn't want to forget. The alarm went off, I piddled around for a while, and then made my three-minute voyage to Wal-Mart. I walked in at 11:45, for what would be 15 of the longest minutes of my life. The anticipation was mounting. I walked directly to where the gloves were and found a two-pack that met all my criteria, so that left me with 14 minutes to kill.

My time-killing plan involved going to the electronics section and playing what games they had on display. I'm not an XBox fan, but they had a 360 sitting there, so I decided to give it a try. I picked up the controller and kept trying to get it to work, but to no success. I then noticed a note on the display case saying not to play Call of Duty 2 because it would freeze the machine. That's the game that was playing. I let go of the controller and moved next door to the GameCube demo disc, still holding onto my gloves.

While I was scrolling through the list of games on the disc, some dude on his cell phone came up next to me, looking quite excited to see the XBox 360 ready to be played. He went through the same confusion I did. I was going to tell him about the sign, but instead, I just stepped back, watched him for a minute, and then walked off. It was satisfying, for some reason.

I then went to the other side of the display case and played a Metroid pinball game for a few minutes. I've always loved pinball, and I've liked Metroid since the Super Nintendo one came out, so this pleased me.

Well, when I got done playing that game, it was 11:53 by my cell phone. I started wandering around the electronics section, acting like I was looking at some stuff when I was really trying to see if I could spot a clock on any of the cash registers. I couldn't. That's when I started making my way up front.

I pretended to look at dishes and candy, and then I started walking slowly to the registers, as it was 11:58 by my phone. I stopped by the banana display and grabbed a bunch of bananas. I started making my way to the self checkouts, because I figured that they might have the official Wal-Mart time on them. If my receipt didn't read midnight, then all of this would have been for nothing. Well, I made it to the self checkout lanes and they were closed. I figured I was screwed.

There were two open lanes beside me, so I got in the one with more people, because I would have much rather had the receipt say 12:01 than 11:59. After about two seconds of waiting, I decided to chance it and get into the lane with no one in it. I slowly moved the cart that was in my path, even though I could have slipped past it. I slowly sat my two items on the conveyor belt. She quickly scanned the items. I slowly handed her my money. She quickly finished her task and then handed me my change, my receipt, and my bag. I walked about five steps away before looking at my receipt.

Here is my receipt.

Mission accomplished.

11-24-05 - Well, my site is now over a year old. Hooray.

Hahaha, James IM-ed me.

Holy crap, I have seen the coolest video on the internet ever. It's a house flashing its Christmas lights to music. IM me if you'd like to see it, as well.

I bought a new guitar Friday. It's a black Takamine acoustic guitar. Ah, it's nice.

This might be a good weekend. Lasagna tonight, David's coming to visit tomorrow, and I might meet a person or two in the upcoming days.

This is another case where I thought I had a lot more to say than I actually did. Oh, well. I should have something silly to type about tomorrow :-D

11-16-05 - Some guy named James left a comment on my site, but there's no telling when it was left. James, IM me or e-mail me or something if you read this. I'm curious how you found my site and I've got some stuffs to ask you, if you don't mind.

11-15-05 - I love memories. That's why I take so many pictures. That's why I have a huge quotes list (I know, I need to update it on my site). I love all of my friends. I wish I could have better luck with making friends up here.

Isn't it odd how the oddest things can remind you of completely unrelated things? Last weekend, whilst driving down I-840 with my windows down while the temperature was low and the air smelled like winter, I was reminded of some truly great memories. That's something no one can take away from me. That's a good feeling.

On my way back home to Columbia early Friday morning (I think that's when I heard this), I heard some guy on the radio talk about someone he admired and that man's mantra: "Activity over time yields results." Maybe this guy wasn't an algebra teacher, but it should've been "Activity times time yields results." I know it's possible that by "over" he meant "across," but I took it to mean "divided by." The way he said it, after rearranging things algebraically, basically translates to "If you spend time performing the results, you will achieve the activity." Psssh.

I got a "new" tv over the weekend. It's probably almost as old as my little sister, but it's bigger than the one I've had for the past five years, so it's nice. It's a behemoth, though. I think it weighs just short of a metric ton. What really pisses me off, though, is that it likes to turn itself off on occasion and then it takes forever to turn it back on, for whatever other reason. Stupid Mitsubishi...yeah, it's a Mitsubishi. Oh, well. As long as it doesn't worsen, I think it's not a big deal, seeing as how it was only $40. I hope it doesn't happen during DDR, though...that's all I need, a third thing to potentially malfunction.

I also got a new jacket over the weekend, and special thanks to Kate for helping me to choose it. It's as close to the same jacket as I could find. It's thinner, but seems to be much warmer. I think I got it a bit big, unintentionally, but I like my jackets to be a bit big.

Stupid I-40 traffic...I, for once, had plans for when I got back into Knoxville on Sunday night. Kelly called and wanted to know if I wanted to get pizza and watch some Futurama and Daria. I did, so I told her I'd be there in about two hours, which is ample time to make it back from Cookeville. Well, about 50 miles away, traffic slows to a dead stop for about 6 minutes. I then proceed to go 11 miles in 40 minutes...exciting. I called to tell her I'd be late, right as I passed the cause of the problem: a mobile home was sitting in the shoulder and blocking part of my lane. I pass it and go the normal speed for a bout three minutes before things slow down again. I think the sheer number of 18-wheelers on the road caused that crap attack. I ended up being an hour later than I should have, but pizza was eaten, shows were watched, and all was good.

Before the major traffic issue, though (actually, I think it was before I hit Cookeville), some moron was so anxious to pass an 18-wheeler (even though it was slow enough to where I was about to fly by it) that he nearly clipped me. He was probably less than half a foot away from me when he swerved into my lane. I kept my cool and didn't honk, like I normally do. I just waited for my chance to royally piss him off, which I figured would happen cuz that normally does, and it happened less than two minutes later. After he passed Mr. Man, he pulled back into the right lane and I passed him. I then started to pass another Mr. Man when Jerkface (that's his name now) switched back into my lane to pass him. Well, the 18-wheeled Mr. Man was going significantly lower than the speed limit, so I started to do the same for a good couple of minutes, ever so slowly edging toward the front of the big rig. When I got there, I punched it to get back up to speed and then did the same thing next to another truck for another couple of minutes. Then, after I finally decided to pass him, I changed lanes to let Jerkface pass, but I did it ever so slowly to where he'd have to wait an extra few seconds (which I've learned really irritates people) before he could pass me. It was very satisfying.

So I've had this theory for a while that there's at least one person on any fairly recent (i.e. not from 40 years ago) movie or TV show that has made at least a guest appearance on 24, as they go through SO many extras. I watched two movies this weekend that further proved my theory: The Shawshank Redemption and SAW. I'd seen the former before, but it'd been a couple years. I forgot how good that movie is. Anyway, I pretty much had the whole other movie spoiled for me simply because I recognized Tobin Bell's voice from season 2 of 24 and so I knew that he wasn't who they wanted you to think he is. The end still surprised me, though.

So anyway, I presented my theory to people at lunch yesterday and one guy, without thinking, said, "Even Sesame Street?" I said, "Probably." Well, last night the last thing I did before going to bed was check into that. There have been a TON of regulars since it started in 1969, but I was starting to get worried when I was about halfway down the list and no one had even made a guest appearance on the show...until I saw Kim Raver on the list. She was on Sesame Street for three years starting in 1975 and I recognized her name cuz she was one of the main characters in season 4. Woo-hoo!

I was at Kroger yesterday and some chick (I wanna say she was out of high school, at least, but I don't know) was saying something to her mom and her mom said to be quiet or put something back or I don't know when the girl replied, "Who names something 'Cranberry Celebration'?" It was all I could do to not bust out laughing, and that was true for the rest of the time I was in the store. I kept running into them, too, and I couldn't help but think of it. I was further amused when they got in the checkout line behind me and the girl asked the bagger, "Could you put the Cranberry Celebration in a bag by itself?" I couldn't take it any more and I just laughed and told them that I'd been laughing at that for the past 10 minutes. They got a chuckle out of it. Well, as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I saw them and rolled down my windows and threw my arm in the air and said, "Go celebrate some cranberries!" and the girl threw her arms in the air and yelled, "Yeah!"

I love randomness.

11-14-05 - Julianne and Lauren are the crazy gals of mirth.

I went to see Jarhead with Carol Linn and one of her friends on Tuesday. Having no idea what the movie was even about when I agreed to go with them, I'd have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It was a fairly decent movie. I was talking to someone about it a couple days ago and that person (I don't remember who it was) said that she (I think it was a she - and no, that doesn't make it Gus) doesn't like combat movies. It was odd, cuz I didn't really think about it until that statement - it's really not a combat movie. She replied, "Isn't it about marines?" I'm going nowhere with this, so I'll stop.

I played Tetris Attack for the first time in years this weekend. I played against my mom and Liz and I kicked both of their butts. I'm awesome. I got a 17x combo. If you've ever played that game, you know how difficult that can be. I got several 14x combos, as well. Did I get an echo to? You know I did. It pissed my mom right off B-)

I saw an AOL commercial this weekend that said, "Spyware could slow your performance up to 500%." A moron wrote that commercial.

I had an 18-minute long conversation today. This conversation, though it contained nothing of anything remotely important, was looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong overdue. I enjoyed it. And you were right, I can't deny it. Psssh...it's not like you read this anyway.

I had lunch with Amber on Friday...and her cousin Thomas was there, too! Holy crap! I hadn't seen that guy in like 3 years! And then later, all Three Meats were within arm's reach for the first time in as long! When Amber got up to go to the bathroom, he told me a funny story involving a train and a Crown and Coke. Wow, I can't believe I just typed that *laughs heartily, but faggily*

I have tons more to type, but it's bed time and I need sleep. Holy crap, will I make two posts in as many days?! Tune in tomorrow to find out!

11-6-05 - Friday was completely uneventful, except for the fact that I got kinda good at playing "Jezebel" by Iron and Wine on my guitar. There's no telling how many times I played that song on Friday alone. I'd say that a few dozen is probably an understatement. I can now sing and play it at the same time and make it sound decent. The only thing that really sucks is that I changed my guitar strings yesterday for the first time in a couple years with strings that I've had for 3 1/2 years...and they were given to me by someone that had them for who knows how long? They sound nice, though, so I don't think that matters. What does matter, though, it whilst changing them, a part on my guitar that had become kinda brittle and cracked during my last changing broke a little bit when I changed them this time. I don't think that's hurting things, either, but it's not good. I know that guitars aren't supposed to stay in tune for a while after their strings are changed, but I am having an insanely difficult time getting them remotely in tune, despite the fact that they've stabilized a bit. Hopefully that'll fix itself soon.

Wow, it seems as if MySpace will help me regain my sanity. I hope I'm right. I'm starting to meet people on there. I hope I can make some lasting friendships with at least one person I've met on there.

A couple days ago, I got a message from a gal on there named Carol Linn. We didn't get a chance to talk til like 1 this morning. At 2:30, we decided we were bored and in the mood to do something fun, so we went to Steak 'n Shake for an hour or so and then came back to my apartment and watched some Conan and South Park. It was quite fun.

So that's two new people in five days. Here's hoping that at least one of them would like to hang out again!

11-2-05 - This past weekend was amazing! I spent Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon in Cookeville and I wasn't alone for more than 10 minutes the entire time, except for sleeping. I had SO much fun! The drama performances went very well, too...despite the "Torn" CD messing up. Blast! I saw so many people, went out to eat like 7 times, all at different places. I saw almost everyone I wanted to see. The only two that I can think of at the moment (and I'm not trying to think hard, so don't be mad if I didn't see you and you're not mentioned here) are Cole and Brandan :-( The two things that REALLY pissed me off about this weekend are the fact that I randomly got chapped lips, which hasn't happened in probably well over a decade, and the Verizon network around Cookeville went down for a good chunk of Saturday, which played a part in my not seeing Cole and Brandan. The cast party was very fun. I think I slept 1 1/2 hours Saturday night. They had me play a game where I unknowingly made up a story about myself. My story consisted of one gal impregnating another, a massive exchange of STD's between me, those two chicks, four other gals, Oprah, and Dr. Phil. Yikes!

I stole the idea of being Quailman for Halloween from my friend Dale (I know he wasn't anywhere near the first person to be him). I went to Andrew's party, where everyone was a few years older than me. No one had any idea who Quailman was, and I think a couple thought I made it up. Well, every time the doorbell rang, I jumped in front of the door and gave my best superhero pose and opened the door. Just about everyone busted out laughing at me and most of those people knew who I was. I asked, "Do you know who I am?" "Quailman!" The first time it happened, everyone inside just died laughing because they realized it was something real :-) I love my new Quailman picture.

So today I went to SubWay to meet and eat dinner with someoen I met on MySpace. Her name's Kelly. Afterwards, we went to her apartment and watched a couple episodes of Futurama and a couple of Daria. I really had fun. We seem to be quite alike, so I hope that I've made a new friend up here.

I had a conversation with someone today, when I got back from Kelly's, that was LONG overdue. It was difficult, but I did it and I feel much better about myself now.