One quiz at a time

[flash_uk]

Very classy!

[Old Bridge]

Yesterday I sat and observed a squirrel consuming seeds from pine cones.
How long time did it on average, during 15 minutes, use per cone?

[flash_uk]

10 seconds

[Old Bridge]

10 seconds

It was not finished in 10 seconds.

[Old Bridge]

I think it is appropriate, to make this a little easier, to point out that the pine cones in question are not from Pinus Ponderosa, but from Pinus Sylvestris.
All you good people with stopwatches who have been scouring parks and forests for feeding squirrels, over the weekend, can now come home again and start guessing.

[Alex Bridgeman]

32 seconds

[Old Bridge]

32 seconds

Closer, but no cigar.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I do wonder what kind of person decides it would be fun to time how quickly a squirrel manages to eat all the seeds from a pine cone. I mean, that would be like someone who spends part of their life carefully gluing back together corks from old port bottles which have fallen apart when being opened.

[Old Bridge]

Indeed.
Nature is wonderful, so much is going on without us seeing it. Not everybody needs adrenalin kicks all the time.

[flash_uk]

42 seconds

[Old Bridge]

42 seconds

Very close.

[Alex Bridgeman]

43 seconds

[Old Bridge]

43 seconds

Even closer.

[flash_uk]

45 seconds

[Old Bridge]

45 seconds

Even closer!!

[Alex Bridgeman]

46 seconds

[Old Bridge]

46 seconds

That is nearest so far.

[flash_uk]

48 seconds

[Old Bridge]

48 seconds

Equal closest!

[Alex Bridgeman]

47 seconds!!

I believe that entitles me to post the next question.

I recently visited South Africa. During my time there I tasted only one producer's fortified wine but purchased bottles from 4 others.

Name the producer I tasted and (at least) one of the producers whose wine I purchased.

[Old Bridge]

Boplaas?

Is Google my friend?

[Alex Bridgeman]

I did indeed buy a bottle of Boplaas. I bought a bottle of the 2013 Cape Vintage Reserve. I also bought bottles from Allesverloren, Vergelegen and Overgaauw.

So which producer did I taste when I was in SA?

[Deleted_User_1]

I did indeed buy a bottle of Boplaas. I bought a bottle of the 2013 Cape Vintage Reserve. I also bought bottles from Allesverloren, Vergelegen and Overgaauw.

So which producer did I taste when I was in SA?

Cavendish...'63 one would hope

[Old Bridge]

AXE HILL?

[Alex Bridgeman]

Not Cavendish, nor Axe Hill.

[Deleted_User_1]

This may take a while but how about ...Monis.

[Old Bridge]

This may take a while but how about ...Monis.

+1

VERGENOEGD?

[Alex Bridgeman]

Neither Monis nor Vergenoegd.

But it does start with the same letter as Monis.

[Deleted_User_1]

It must be Murate Cape Ruby.

[Deleted_User_1]

It must be Murate Cape Ruby.

Should read Muratie.

[Alex Bridgeman]

It was Muratie. Their NV Cape Ruby. It wasn't bad.

Better than the Allesverloren 2011 Cape Vintage. That tasted like a cold stabilised and filtered ruby; I was not impressed. It wasn't up to the standard of a good LBV like Sandeman.

Ray - you're up.

[Old Bridge]

There should perhaps be an analogy to the Bishop of Norwich in this thread.

[jdaw1]

Seizing ancient powers.

Explain “cafe humid palace”.

As you would surely expect, there is a good answer relevant to the business of this forum. But what?

[jdaw1]

Two clues: “stick hush goes”; “congratulations hope organs”.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Royal Companhia Velha, via the Marquis of Pombal.

[jdaw1]

Royal Companhia Velha, via the Marquis of Pombal.

No. A blind fumble in the dark, in vain.

It isn’t entirely clear, but “tile.sweat.craft” might be nearer. Or “stands.plots.varieties”.

[Doggett]

Another fumble coming up...

“Beer, Spirits, Cigars, and Pork Pies
Other alcoholic drinks, decadent smokes, and hearty eating”

[Old Bridge]

Douro stone terraces?

[Glenn E.]

Taylor.Vargellas.Vinha Velha

[PhilW]

I am intrigued, but likely no closer than anyone else to determining the meaning/mechanism of this puzzle so far.

[jdaw1]

Obviously none of you know anything.

The word sequences were, at creation, constrained random, but are now fixed. There are many. Very many^†. The relevant ones (for our purposes) are, by design, sequences very different from each other and not easily confused with other nearby sequences.

That is so many clues that whoever gets it could, rather than explaining, merely post a satisfactory substitute sequence.

† IIRC, most of five dozen trillion.

[jdaw1]

I think that “defeat.photo.hugs” and “ears.oddly.free” should be marked as showing understanding.

Douro stone terraces?

Taylor.Vargellas.Vinha Velha

“Beer, Spirits, Cigars, and Pork Pies
Other alcoholic drinks, decadent smokes, and hearty eating”

The politest thing I can say about these hopeless botches is that they are wrong.

I am intrigued, but likely no closer than anyone else to determining the meaning/mechanism of this puzzle so far.

You will really like the answer.

[jdaw1]

Is this too difficult? Should I just tell you lost folks.

[Old Bridge]

For me this is not easily understandable, and maybe not even guessable, in fact it seems like meaningless drivel.
I admit defeat.

[PhilW]

Some vague thoughts in case it helps anyone else. The thoughts I have at the moment are around conversion from word lengths, so "cafe humid palace" being 4 5 6 etc. Looking at all the above sequences in that way, they could all be times (4:56, 5:44, 15:46) or post numbers (456, 544, 1546) but having looked through first post numbers for each of the forums and other similar possibilities which match the "constrained random at creation, now fixed" criteria, I have not identified anything which seems to fit. The statement "It isn’t entirely clear, but “tile.sweat.craft” might be nearer" might provide inspiration (in that there is some lack of precision perhaps involved) but has not done so as yet.

[jdaw1]

word lengths

Nonsense.

[jdaw1]

Explain “cafe humid palace”.

As you would surely expect, there is a good answer relevant to the business of this forum. But what?

Two clues: “stick hush goes”; “congratulations hope organs”.

It isn’t entirely clear, but “tile.sweat.craft” might be nearer. Or “stands.plots.varieties”.

The word sequences were, at creation, constrained random, but are now fixed. There are many. Very many^†. The relevant ones (for our purposes) are, by design, sequences very different from each other and not easily confused with other nearby sequences.

I think that “defeat.photo.hugs” and “ears.oddly.free” should be marked as showing understanding.

Try map.what3words.com/cafe.humid.palace, and the other clue sequences (stick.hush.goes; congratulations.hope.organs; tile.sweat.craft; stands.plots.varieties; defeat.photo.hugs; ears.oddly.free).

From www.what3words.com/about/:

what3words is the simplest way to talk about any precise location. Our system has divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique address made of just 3 words. Now everyone and everywhere has a reliable address.
…
There’s no human-friendly way to give a location to a machine

As personal devices, autonomous vehicles and the IoT streamline the way we live, we have an increasing need to communicate very accurate location. Addresses are too broad to direct a drone or an autonomous car, whilst GPS coordinates are complicated and prone to input mistakes.

Billions of people worldwide have no reliable address at all

Without an address, people struggle to access health and education services, register land and vote. Many of these people live in rapidly expanding cities, or informal settlements.

Three metres by three metres is almost small enough to identify a single vine. It would not be a foolish mechanism for farmers to identify vines, as the app can readily identify them (perhaps sometimes with a fourth ‘word’ of “.N”, “.E”, “.S” or “.W” or “.C” for central). There’s even a Portuguese version (land only, not covering the oceans), allowing the likes of sutis.vogar.paçoca.

[Alex Bridgeman]

OK. That was clever. I've heard of what3words approach to mapping the world and even looked up one or two places — but didn't connect your question to the map.

Score one to you. When I have a moment I will look up the locations you've identified as your clues.

[PhilW]

Interesting, I haven't heard of this before.

If the radius of the earth is roughly 2^23m, then a translation from longitude/latitude for a single location to 3m x 3m accuracy would require a 2^46 (or less if not mapping oceans) value or less depe; presumably reducing this to 3 indexes of 2^15 (32k) - or perhaps more to include error detection. Still a large dictionary if intended for voice recognition, unless other methods are used on combination for error reduction also.

[Old Bridge]

It is B&F, and since I have never been there, how was I to know?
Well I have learnt something new today as well.