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I notice Phil has changed his one liner at the bottom of his posts to something like; "A short story about SACD; -0.7568".

What does this mean? I have tried google.

They have had twitter short stories, some of which are very good. I must rather grumpily admit that I was very fond of Hemmingway's (pompous halfwit) six word short story;

For sale; baby shoes, never worn.

LGTrotter wrote:Hemmingway

I have no idea what the maths bods are raving about now but you, sir, are on a warning. Please correct.

djewesbury wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:Hemmingway

I have no idea what the maths bods are raving about now but you, sir, are on a warning. Please correct.

Sorry, Hummingbird.

I think his friends just called him Hem.

AW77 wrote:I think his friends just called him Hem.

What about people like me who never knew him and would have thrown themselves out of an upper window to avoid him?

LGTrotter wrote:

AW77 wrote:I think his friends just called him Hem.

What about people like me who never knew him and would have thrown themselves out of an upper window to avoid him?

They called him Git.

LGTrotter wrote:

AW77 wrote:I think his friends just called him Hem.

What about people like me who never knew him and would have thrown themselves out of an upper window to avoid him?

They called him Ming-way

Or Papa Doc

LGTrotter wrote: What about people like me who never knew him and would have thrown themselves out of an upper window to avoid him?

Hm, I wonder why you would avoid Hemingway. I think he would have been a good companion to share a bottle of wine with. And he would have appreciated a good bottle, too.

He seemed more concerned with constructing an image, a legacy than with his writing. I quite liked 'The old man and the sea' when I was young. I find it a little laboured for such a short book these days. His foray into the Spanish civil war was portentous and empty, lacking either the journalistic clarity of Orwell or the narrative strength of 'As I walked out one midsummer morning'. His journalism showed little empathy for what he was describing and he seemed to be of the opinion that his arrival was the main story. He seems to have, for a while achieved his goal of becoming a gold standard of how to be a writer. I thank goodness that he seems to be slipping into obscurity now that it is his writing that remains rather than his narcissistic projection of himself.

Sounds a bit harsh now I look at it, but opinions are just that. And I freely own that I struggle with quite a lot of North American literature.

And for someone who drinks as much as I do I have very little sympathy for such obvious alcoholics.

I always find pompous people who take themselves too seriously very funny. Perhaps you should look at him in this way.

LGTrotter wrote:I notice Phil has changed his one liner at the bottom of his posts to something like; "A short story about SACD; -0.7568".

What does this mean? I have tried google.

Google is unlikely to help. My previous signature might; an additional clue is that the original story was longer than my version.

PhilW wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:I notice Phil has changed his one liner at the bottom of his posts to something like; "A short story about SACD; -0.7568".

What does this mean? I have tried google.

Google is unlikely to help. My previous signature might; an additional clue is that the original story was longer than my version.

Phil, thank you for noticing this.

The last signature was something like; 'maths puns are the first sine of madness'. I think that was it. But it does not help, given that I am rather mathematically challenged. Is it a pun? Related to sines?

Can I ask for another, more obvious clue? I should like to know the answer but I see I am to be made to work for it.

LGTrotter wrote:

PhilW wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:I notice Phil has changed his one liner at the bottom of his posts to something like; "A short story about SACD; -0.7568".

What does this mean? I have tried google.

Google is unlikely to help. My previous signature might; an additional clue is that the original story was longer than my version.

Phil, thank you for noticing this.

I did see the original post, but left it in case of other replies, thought it was side-tracked, so thought I'd reply now.

LGTrotter wrote:Can I ask for another, more obvious clue? I should like to know the answer but I see I am to be made to work for it.

Of course.

LGTrotter wrote:The last signature was something like; 'maths puns are the first sine of madness'. I think that was it. But it does not help, given that I am rather mathematically challenged.

It should help. No mental maths is required.

LGTrotter wrote:Is it a pun?

Yes.

LGTrotter wrote:Related to sines?

Yes.
You're almost there.

I can do puns, but sines of puns seems impossible. And I have yet to discern what SACD refers to. Is it the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques?

-0.7568 ≈ Sin[−49°].

And no, I don’t know the what or why.

Super Audio Compact Disc?

A couple of extra clues:

• "A short story by SACD" - SACD is a person.
• −49° is not the only angle for which sine(x)=-0.7568.

(n.b. While the mathematically inclined might solve this from the numerics, I expected the maths to only be used as a simple check to confirm a realisation of the answer).

Is it Sacha Distel?

"Math puns are the first sine of madness" was his previous signature.

Is there an irrational (e.g. mad) number for which the sine is ≈ -0.7568?

PhilW wrote:

• −49° is not the only angle for which sine(x)=-0.7568.

Including −131°, −49°, 229°, 311°, 589°, 671°, 949°, 1031°, 1309°, 1391°, 1669°, 1751°, 2029°, 2111°, 2389°, etc. Are any of these numbers appropriate literary or musical references?

jdaw1 wrote:

PhilW wrote:

• −49° is not the only angle for which sine(x)=-0.7568.

Including .... Are any of these numbers appropriate literary or musical references?

229° would be the relevant one, but I'm really not sure it will help you to know this, unless you realise something else...

djewesbury wrote:Is it Sacha Distel?

no.

Is it; "the taxidermist never loved his daughter more"?

LGTrotter wrote:Is it; "the taxidermist never loved his daughter more"?

No, but I'm intrigued to hear your explanation as to why that could have been the answer?

The answer, once known, will be clear and unambiguous (aside from the pun!).

We should start a thread where trivial questions could be asked with a quizmaster who relinquishes the quiz once his question has been answered...

PhilW wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:Is it; "the taxidermist never loved his daughter more"?

No, but I'm intrigued to hear your explanation as to why that could have been the answer?

The answer, once known, will be clear and unambiguous (aside from the pun!).

I was just shoehorning in the winner of a six word short story competition into this thread. I know it's seven words. It should of course go; "no taxidermist loved his daughter more".

Seems like time for another clue; SACD are the initials of an author, BUT his Christian name does not begin with an S.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

Links to where I spent a significant amount of term time as a late teenager.

DRT wrote:Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

Yes, which should give away the rest of the answer being the title of a story he wrote...

Lot No. 249?

The Sign of The Four?

djewesbury wrote:The Sign of The Four?

The correct story; The ideal answer would have been "The sine of the four", since sine(4)=-0.7568024950..... or in short -0.7568.
Daniel's turn.
(oops, no, wrong thread)

Yes. I get that. But really, Phil…
SACD was a neighbour of my grandfather (REOJ) for a while.

I was confused by this:

PhilW wrote:229° would be the relevant one, but I'm really not sure it will help you to know this, unless you realise something else...

Which is just close enough to 221B that I was trying to figure out that (non-existent) pun.

Well I'm glad we got that cleared up. It would have preyed on my mind.

PhilW’s new signature says “SAWPSBGXWWCPCQHBQZWJZTKRKR”. I have no idea, but if it is an acronym then the ‘QZW’ might be worthy of focus.

jdaw1 wrote:PhilW’s new signature says “SAWPSBGXWWCPCQHBQZWJZTKRKR”. I have no idea, but if it is an acronym then the ‘QZW’ might be worthy of focus.

Nobody seems to have picked up the challenge; perhaps it is too obscure. It is a cryptogram; I will say no more for now, since clues would likely make it too easy, but will reveal the answer early in the new year and replace with something else then, if it is not solved before.

PhilW wrote:

jdaw1 wrote:PhilW’s new signature says “SAWPSBGXWWCPCQHBQZWJZTKRKR”. I have no idea, but if it is an acronym then the ‘QZW’ might be worthy of focus.

Nobody seems to have picked up the challenge; perhaps it is too obscure. It is a cryptogram; I will say no more for now, since clues would likely make it too easy, but will reveal the answer early in the new year and replace with something else then, if it is not solved before.

For anyone interested, this was in fact a Vigenere cipher, which when decoded would have revealed the text "PM key to PhilW on TPF for reward", the key being "Dom Luis I Porto" (all case-insensitive). If decoded, the sender of the first correct answer would have received a bottle of VP from me (a G70 to be precise). The cryptogram was carefully constructed to be difficult but not impossible for users of this forum; ask me about it sometime if you are interested in further details.

PhilW wrote: ↑13:22 Mon 16 Jan 2017

PhilW wrote:The cryptogram was carefully constructed to be difficult but not impossible for users of this forum; ask me about it sometime if you are interested in further details.

I did wonder if it was a cipher like that, but couldn't figure out any way of trying to crack it. Seeing the answer, I suppose it would not have been too wild to guess that PORT might appear in the key, and to just move PORT along to different positions in the key and look at what answer that produced.

With PORT in the correct position in the key, the plaintext would have been "hilw" and "ewar". Even then, if I'd spotted that p went before "hilw" and d went after "ewar", I'd then have found these letters from the key *******IPORTO. Would I ever have figured out the DOM LUIS part? Very doubtful!
Edit: and as I think about it, I would not have easily been able to get the "ewar" text, as I could not be sure of the key length...

Not so easy I think!

The key is of length 13; the ciphertext (cyphertext?) of length 26. Assuming a wide range of plain texts, that might not be crackable even in theory. Letters 1 and 14 are same distance (modulo 26) from each other as in ciphertext. With even a little uncertainty about length of key, did we really have enough information?

And ‘Vigenère’ has an accent.

Edit: absence of repetition defeats Kasiski examination: