Yoruichi-san

I'm not religious, I don't believe in trying to do good deeds so that I can go to heaven or anything. But I try to think on a larger scale, on what is good for the world as a whole. Which is why I don't like war...the victors may gain something but as a whole it's a negative-sum game (considering the losses of lives and resources), so it hurts the world as a whole. But Objectivism would say that if you thought you could win the war you should do it, because it would help you. Hence, I don't agree with it. Also, from an objective standpoint, I think Objectivism works in theory, but the assumptions aren't practical. Basically, for Objectivism to work it requires that everyone be perfectly educated and perfectly rational, so that they are able to determine all the consequences of their decisions. It requires everyone to be game theory experts, and that is definitely not practically feasible...take the example of the financial crisis in the US right now...the ppl who got loans and the banks who were willing to give them were only thinking about what was good for themselves and couldn't or wouldn't rationally think about the long-term effects, and now the economy is screwed up.

Oh, and FYI, I'm going to call this my first Leliel puzzle...referring to the Angel...meant to challenge your perceptions ;P Most ppl looking at the OP would see what they thought was a sentence with some meaning and a random string of letters which they think is a cipher... When actually the "sentence" is a string of elements that make up the cipher and the "cipher" makes up the sentence... Anyways, you can definitely expect more Leliel puzzles to come... Oh, and will post full solution, but I want to give foolonthehill a chance to finish off her excellent work!

I won't go forgetting Indium in a hurry - that really messed me up! Great job, you've solved the puzzle! However, lol, you answered the wrong question...the title says "Find the Extra Letter", not the missing letter... And as I said in the OP, you can tack on an extra word on the end...;P Thanks, I'm happy now!

4.5 11.4 10.3 8.6 3.5 9.8 9.6 6.4 5.2 9.4 12.3 1.5 10.2(German) 9.2 Enjoy!

When you're tossing and turning in your bed thinking of new puzzles to contribute and get up at 4am to post a new thread...XP

It wasn't a comment, it was explaining my story idea for "Randthem", which would be a parody of "Anthem" (by Rand). "Anthem" took civilization to one extreme, and I'm simply taking the opposite extreme that "Anthem" did in my parody... Edit: Oh, and from Wikipedia: Rand advocated rational individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, categorically rejecting socialism, altruism, and religion. Her ideas remain both influential and controversial. From what I know, she is against altruism... Edit2: And I understand the argument behind Objectivism, but I don't agree with it. And I don't feel a necessity to explain both sides of the argument in order to make my point...since I was just sharing some ideas I had...

Lol...thanks...what's on on Thursdays...Lost? And thanks for posting the complete solution for everyone else to understand, lol...I'm always bad at making things readable to others (I pity the TAs who had to grade my problem sets...XP)...I'm always like "as long as it makes sense in my head"...;P

Wow...I did have an opinion, but it soon got lost in the sea of new thoughts that flood through my head each day... I remember my friend was discussing The Fountainhead with me, and the idea that all self-sacrifice and altruism was bad, that to be a "hero" one must live only for his/her own happiness...which is totally contrary to my definition of "hero" I have a saying: It's the villains that put the "super" and the self-sacrifice that puts the "hero" in Superhero. I believe that to be a "hero" means to sacrifice oneself for the good of a larger group. I believe in the virtues of selflessness whereas Rand is a proponent of the virtue of selfishness... Oh, yeah, and I was going to write "Randthem", which would have been my parody on "Anthem", where the Randthem is that everyone must exist only for their own happiness and any signs of altruism would be punished...hence making ppl have conflicts over everything, even trivial things, because all they cared about was what was good for them, and this led to anarchy and the tearing apart of civilization as we know it...hmmm...but it got lost in the ocean of story ideas that I have yet to write...

Oh, yeah, also I forgot to put in the stipulation: 0<r<1 (for the n->infinity part, so that r^n -> 0)

Err...I think you missed my last post... ...oh, and there is a typo in my last post, it should be (n)r^(n), not r^n on that last series...

Okay, since it's my birthday (9/26), I'll give you guys a present...here's my final hint: Now, if you want to give me a present, SOLVE THIS! ;P

Aha! I figured out how to do the series: So the proof for a geometric series: sum[r^(n-1)] {n=1 to infinity} = 1/(1-r) is: Denote the series by Sg Sg = 1+r+r^2+r^3+...r^(n-1) r*Sg = r+r^2+r^3+r^4+...r^n Subtracting the two cancels out most of the terms: Sg-r*Sg = 1-r^n Since Sg-r*Sg=(1-r)*Sg, we divide both sides by (1-r) Sg = (1-r^n)/(1-r) Letting n->infinity, Sg{n=1 to infinity} = 1/(1-r) So for this problem, we weight each term by its index Sn=sum[nr^(n-1)], so Sn = 1+2r+3r^2+4r^3+...nr^(n-1) r*Sn= r+2r^2+3r^3+4r^4+...r^n Again, subtracting, we get the geometric series: Sn-r*Sn = 1+(3-2)r^2+(4-3)r^3+(5-4)r^4+...(n-(n-1))r^(n-1) = 1+r+r^2+r^3+r^4...r^(n-1) = Sg = (1-r^n)/(1-r) Again, dividing by (1-r), we get: Sn = (1-r^n)/(1-r)^2 Again, letting n-> infinity, Sn {n=1 to infinity} = 1/(1-r)^2 Applying this result to the problem: Edit: Oh, you posted this while I was writing it up... See above ;P

Oh, and the generalized form for any p:

Okay, I'm rusty on series, but Mathematica confirms...

Hmm...interesting. When I read that I was thinking "that's exactly what college was...". It sounds like a good idea for older members who miss being around "people like us", but I think for younger members, it is more effective to put their efforts into getting into a good college (with lots of intellectual and interesting people )

This reminds me of a lab I did in college...

Well, I see you've already figured a lot of them out...good job Alyanna and CL!...but actually there was a distinct reason for the pattern in Lvl 1...and the mods are applied to that...;P

Neither ;P

Well, given that it's Huang Lao Si, I would call him the Old Yellow Lion...then the fight makes sense...;P

Reverse: [color="#FFFFFF"]Stealth:[/color] 1) [color="#FFFFFF"]21)[/color] mri [color="#FFFFFF"]tnr[/color] tcp (IM any) [color="#FFFFFF"]sod [/color] aih [color="#FFFFFF"]sam[/color] 2) [color="#FFFFFF"]22)[/color] krn [color="#FFFFFF"]les [/color] boa [color="#FFFFFF"]oar[/color] krn [color="#FFFFFF"]bvt [/color] 3) [color="#FFFFFF"]23) [/color] myl [color="#FFFFFF"]iih [/color] meu (not unde) [color="#DDA0DD"] dgt[/color] msr [color="#FFFFFF"] rot[/color] [color="#FFFFFF"]24)[/color] Mirror: [color="#FFFFFF"]noa[/color] [color="#FFFFFF"]frz[/color] 4) [color="#FFFFFF"]ery[/color] tne tsg (feminine ending) [color="#FFFFFF"] 25)[/color] rel [color="#FFFFFF"]tso[/color] [color="#FFFFFF"]iie[/color] 5) [color="#FFFFFF"]rnn [/color] dih nes (lower Carolina) [color="#FFFFFF"]26) [/color] ipt [color="#FFFFFF"] rtl[/color] [color="#FFFFFF"]bft[/color] 6) [color="#FFFFFF"] euy[/color] fio hfh ugs Left: 7) wea kaa (pourquoi?) etm 8) elm uvo (electron charge, solitary) aye 9) seu rro (some number, glow) efv Right: 10) yhw aep (not out, children movie rating) dpd 11) rtr oom (to make a mistake, vapor) pow 12) yci rna (Victory Day) ozl Shuffle: 13) cct dwt (not and) hio 14) toe hot (what's up?) lok 15) sir cho (Diana's orb) cgn 16) kkc bad (woods) arl 17) non rir (final Stargate villains) oni 18) mmm aaa (prostrated) jr& 19) you pee (hit) rhr 20) tag van (spanish the) yin[/codebox]

If the shadow is angel and the angel is shadow, then the other part must be some sort of cipher key Someone else must be able to help - this is driving me mad!! Lol...yeah, I get that a lot...;P But your first numbers were closer, it's just that I use the convention of using the fewest possible to spell stuff out...like I would choose No instead of N and O... And hmmm...

Good job! And refer back to Prof. Templeton's post for the first connection...

Good work, but there's more than one way to skin a cat...;P And you only seem to understand half of my point...