One quiz at a time

[Old Bridge]

9001 posts! (Milestone?)

[Old Bridge]

Hint: If your mother tongue had been Dutch, the flower, and the producer, would be fairly obvious, I think.

[PhilW]

Clueless about the clue...
Niepoort '04 lbv?

[Old Bridge]

Hint: They are obviously good sailors. Their boat beat jdaw1’s boat in the 2016 race with about 4 metres.

[Old Bridge]

Ok, final hint: Their boat beat jdaw1’s boat in the 2016 race with about 4 metres, according to the man himself.

[Old Bridge]

Sorry, got a bit carried away and pressed button too quickly.

[jdaw1]

Rozès 2004 LBV?

Which is so obviously the answer — again — that I’m tempted just to charge into my question.

A few copies of Port Vintages were printed, as a draft. Numerous small improvements have since been found. And one large improvement: an index, or more accurately several indexes, were needed, and have been added. So in the Microsoft Word file have been added many ‘index this’ { XE … } entries. As of now, how many?

[Old Bridge]

Correct.

7

And as a bonus you can add me to the orderlist of your book, please.

[jdaw1]

7

How many index entries? Seven? Seven! Too small.

And as a bonus you can add me to the orderlist of your book, please.

Thank you.

[CPR 1]

224

[flash_uk]

1712 entries

[PhilW]

874

[Old Bridge]

At scool I was often told to read the question thoroughly. I shall do that.

[jdaw1]

224

How many index entries? Two hundred and twenty-four? Two hundred and twenty-four! Too small.

874

How many index entries? Eight hundred and seventy-four? Eight hundred and seventy-four! Too small.

1712 entries

How many index entries? One thousand seven hundred and twelve? One thousand seven hundred and twelve! Too small.

[Old Bridge]

2874

[jdaw1]

2874

Much better. The closest so far.

[Doggett]

4800?

[Old Bridge]

3455

[jdaw1]

4800?

Fourth-best of the guesses up to it.

3455

Second-best of the guesses up to it.

(The clues narrow it down to 872 possibilities.)

[Old Bridge]

3112, but not my turn.

[jdaw1]

3112, but not my turn.

Not your turn.

[Old Bridge]

Surely, I told you that.

[Doggett]

3066

[jdaw1]

3066

Very helpfully to you, second-best of the guesses up to it.

[flash_uk]

2927

[Old Bridge]

3112

[CPR 1]

3002

[jdaw1]

2927

Second-best of the guesses up to it.

3112

Fourth-best of the guesses up to it.

3002

Third-best of the guesses up to it.

[jdaw1]

(Aside: are you flailing around or is somebody doing the logic? The guesses suggest flailing.)

[Old Bridge]

2875

[Doggett]

2902? And yes...just flailing around, but trying to apply some logic too/guess.

[jdaw1]

2875

Second. Much more cunning.

2902? And yes...just flailing around, but trying to apply some logic too/guess.

Third.

[Old Bridge]

2873

[jdaw1]

2873

Even though it is the best guess so far, less cunning than I had hoped.

[Old Bridge]

2850

[Old Bridge]

Ahh. not my turn.

I shall go to bed. We are an hour ahead of you.

[jdaw1]

I am going to bed soon as well. A few more guesses might help somebody post some logic, to lessen the flailing.

[CPR 1]

2706

[jdaw1]

2706

It being the sixth-best might seem rubbish. But it greatly narrows the search space.

[flash_uk]

2790

[jdaw1]

2790

Just in time — new best.

Good night.

[Old Bridge]

2850

[PhilW]

2585
_{(based on logic; I may be one off).}

[jdaw1]

2850

New best.

2585
_{(based on logic; I may be one off).}

Logic is over-rated, Mr. 11th-Best. I’m disappointed.

[flash_uk]

2830

[Old Bridge]

2823

[jdaw1]

2830

The book has several indexes, so the entries each need an index identifier. Word has no built-in means of knowing whether any of these have been mis-typed, so I wrote a script.

Code: Select all

' © 2017 Julian D. A. Wiseman, contactable via www.jdawiseman.com
' Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty
' provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty.

Sub FieldIdentifiers()
	Dim i, j, k, numDifferentIdentifiers, iIndentifierCount(1 To 100) As Integer
	Dim thisIdent, strIdentifier(1 To 100), ans As String
	Dim fld As Field
	Dim thisIdentExists As Boolean

	numDifferentIdentifiers = 0

	For Each fld In ActiveDocument.Fields
		If fld.Type = wdFieldIndexEntry Then
			i = InStr(1, fld.Code.Text, "\f", 1)
			If i = 0 Then
				MsgBox "No \f in “" & fld.Code.Text & "”", 0, "XE missing \f"
			Else
				thisIdent = Mid(fld.Code.Text, i + 3, Len(fld.Code.Text) - i - 3)
				thisIdentExists = False
				For j = 1 To numDifferentIdentifiers
					If thisIdent = strIdentifier(j) Then
						iIndentifierCount(j) = 1 + iIndentifierCount(j)
						thisIdentExists = True
						Exit For
					End If  ' thisIdent = strIdentifier(j)
				Next j
				If Not (thisIdentExists) Then
					numDifferentIdentifiers = 1 + numDifferentIdentifiers
					strIdentifier(numDifferentIdentifiers) = thisIdent
					iIndentifierCount(numDifferentIdentifiers) = 1
				End If  ' Not(thisIdentExists)
			End If	' i=0
		End If  ' wdFieldIndexEntry
	Next fld
	' Sort, not efficiently as done once and list not long
	For i = 1 To numDifferentIdentifiers - 1: For j = i + 1 To numDifferentIdentifiers
		If strIdentifier(j) < strIdentifier(i) Then
			ans = strIdentifier(j): strIdentifier(j) = strIdentifier(i): strIdentifier(i) = ans  ' ans is temp variable
			k = iIndentifierCount(j): iIndentifierCount(j) = iIndentifierCount(i): iIndentifierCount(i) = k  ' k is temp variable
		End If
	Next j: Next i
	ans = "": k = 0
	For j = 1 To numDifferentIdentifiers
		k = k + iIndentifierCount(j)
		' In next line the ‘2’ is approximate, being relative width of digit and space
		ans = ans & Space(2 * (Len(Format(iIndentifierCount(1), "#,##0")) - Len(Format(iIndentifierCount(j), "#,##0")))) _
		& Format(iIndentifierCount(j), "#,##0") & " * " & strIdentifier(j) & vbNewLine
	Next j
	ans = ans & vbNewLine & "Total = " & k
	MsgBox ans, 0, "Frequencies of \f (and subsequent) parameters in XE index entries"
End Sub  ' FieldIdentifiers

Which results in:

Mike’s turn.

Perhaps henceforth questions of the form ‘how many …?’ could have answers in the form ‘n^th-best guess’.

2823

Second-best of the guesses up to it.

[PhilW]

2585
_{(based on logic; I may be one off).}

Logic is over-rated, Mr. 11th-Best. I’m disappointed.

Me too. Stupid calculation error (mis-read/typed an 8 for a 3). At the time (of Simon's 4800 guess) we knew that the answer was >2583, and <2837 (a smaller range than you indicated), unfortunately a typo led me to <2587 instead of 2837, which was less helpful.
{Sackcloth}

[jdaw1]

(a smaller range than you indicated)

Sackcloth and ashes for me too: I realised after that I was using the easy high-yield information, but not all the information.

I can’t yet see what is the optimal guessing strategy.

[flash_uk]

I'm staying in a hotel tonight. Which chain?