Logic puzzle to entertain yourself for 5 or 10 minutes if you get bored.

@Kidsandliz
I had seen this before, and solved it with relative ease. This time I had more trouble, and my memory kept bothering me about the rules. Something felt wrong. Finally I googled the riddle.

The way the riddle is stated varies slightly depending on the source, but the rules are always identical - just that some rules are in different orders, or combined, or not combined, in different presentations.

I think you may have made an error in typing the rule that is RULE #11 in your version:
Your version states:

The person who smokes Blends keeps cats

I am finding this rule as given in web versions should read:

The man who smokes blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.

Can you check this for me? This rule variation makes a large difference in solubility. Thanks.

Incidentally, in a digital age, I am guessing more people may find it easier to solve than perhaps they did decades ago.

@Kidsandliz
Incidentally, the topic image above confirms the revised version of that rule. I just noticed.

@f00l YES YOU ARE RIGHT That is correct. I was tired, and while I proofread, obviously not enough. Sigh.

11. The person who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.

@Thumperchick, @galmaegi, @woodhouse @shawn could one of you please go in and fix this for me in the main post. And also please put a note near the top that I had a typo in #11, it is now correct. Thanks (and I am sorry, won’t even blame the goat).

@f00l In the digital age they can cheat more easily (thus “solve” it more easily). But what fun is that if you like doing stuff like this?

@Kidsandliz
Yeah, it was fun once I found the correct rules.

I am a horrible proofreader. I am worse than you when I am at my best. I am way worse.
: )

@Thumperchick, @galmaegi, @woodhouse @shawn thanks to whomever corrected this for me. If in 11) you could remove the LAST 4 words “and NOT keeps cats” since now that makes it confusing. And again I am sorry for making work for you by me not proofing well at 3am.

@Kidsandliz

I see your rules got fixed. That’s more fun now.

When I talked about people being able to solve this more easily now, of course I know they can google it, but that’s not what I meant.

Back in Einstein’s youth, careful regular puzzle solving was a small minority activity. Many people couldn’t even read, or read with facility. Most people did manual labor all day and again much of the evening. Those who didn’t have to do that often socialized all day and evening. A very different set of skills.

Now every video game and slightly complex search query and device interaction is at least a mild logical puzzle, even if an obvious one. And kids start young and do this all day. Many adults also do it all day.

I think just about everyone I know could solve that puzzle, given some time, and a lack of pressure to go deal with something else.

Not to deny Einstein’s astonishing capacity for “logical dreaming” and imagination/extrapolation beyond where anyone had dreamt of going previously …

But the world has changed. Stuff like this puzzle, that has a solution that yields to many of us, is not such a barrier.

That’s a tough enough puzzle to be fun, but I suspect a lot of kids could do it. It’s the same thinking that’s in all those games, let alone that puzzle as a challenge for kids who mess with systems or code.

@f00l If people find Sudoku easy I suspect they will find this easy. It is only marginally more complicated. Took me about 7 or 8 minutes and I was tired as I completed it shortly before I posted it at, what?, 3 in the morning. I’d guess there are people here who’d finish it in half the time it took me. : )

@Kidsandliz It’s significantly faster when the right information is there. I wrote it down and worked on it off and on during work and kept wondering why I was getting it wrong. Then I finally gave up and checked in to see if someone posted the answer… now with the correct info, it goes much better!
Did everyone draw out the grid, or just me? I love logic puzzles!

@IWUJackson I drew a grid too. Too much info to keep in my brain at once otherwise - especially at 3 in the morning.

@Kidsandliz
Pita to do it in your head. Because no solution w wrong info.

Knew the solution the moment I saw the rule correction.

@IWUJackson I think the grid is the key, otherwise way to many things to keep straight.

@Kidsandliz My solution: The German owns the fish. (They live in a green House, smoke Prince, and drink coffee.)

@Kawa Yes

@baqui63 Thanks for posting that. Maybe I am old school, but solving it myself with paper and pencil gives me the most pleasure (then again maybe I am just dumb LOL)

@baqui63 So that’s what it’s called, I remember mom used to play it a lot.

@miraclewhispers Yep.

I take it you turned on @mention notifications?

@Kidsandliz The computer version of the game is almost the same as using paper with a prebuilt grid. Think of it like the lazy paper way.

@Kidsandliz

Maybe only MEH amount of interest, since no one has posted a puzzle up to now, but I’ll offer one, a slightly different type of “logic” puzzle:

Exactly three athletes named Adam, Bob, and Charlie participate in a number of track and field events.

Points are awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in each event. Each event always scores the same points, i.e. 1st always gets “x” points, 2nd always gets “y” points, 3rd always gets “z” points), with x > y > z > 0. All point values are integers.

Adam finished first with 22 points total.
The Javelin event was won by Bob; he had 9 points total.
Charlie also had 9 points total.

Question: Who finished second in the 100-meter dash ? JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWER (else it’s a multiple-choice question with only 3 guesses, er …, choices).

[Yes, there is enough information…]

@phendrick
BTW, I stole this puzzle. I’ll reference source when (if?) correct solution is posted .

@phendrick I’ll have to try to solve it tomorrow afternoon. Too tired now. Thanks for posting that.

@phendrick I lied. I couldn’t sleep so got up to do it.
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THE ANSWER
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Seriously stop reading if you don’t want to see the answer and reasons
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@Kidsandliz
Correctomundo, good job. Your analysis looks OK, except I didn’t understand that last line (if it was about Charlie, he was 2nd in all but javelin, but was not first in any event – he was 2nd in 100 m (“second in all but javelin”, as you said, where he was 3rd); Alec would’ve been first in 100 m … Anyway…
Hope you got a good sleep after the puzzle work.

Puzzle source:NSA, from home page, if you’d like to see the current one. This puzzle:
https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/puzzles-activities/puzzle-periodical/2016/puzzle-periodical-06.shtml

@phendrick Typo in last line - I did this on paper with a pencil, then tried typing it out but my columns vanished and it was too long to do a snapshot when I typed it out on word on my laptop and so finally dumped it in excel. At that point I was really tired so I translated 1 point into first instead of last LOL.

@jbartus Well it would have been plausible that the cat ate it under the circumstances…

@Kidsandliz that’s a thought.

Never had a problem with my dogs eating our pet fish…