Timewaster's Guide Archive

The chain is not cut at both ends, it's a chain that you can hold at one end, and the entire chain would hang down like a rope.

And you love the chain, and will likely repair it after this episode, so you want to make as few cuts (as little damage) as possible.  

I've got another interim one.

You are staying in a motel one night and your wallet is stolen from your room.  You tell the manager who promptly tells you that you must leave, seeing as how you can now no longer pay for your room.

"I will have my family send me the money", you say.  But alas, the money will not arive for 7 days.  

"If you have something to offer as collateral, then I will allow you to stay" the manager says.

You have a gold chain, but you don't really trust him.  You suspect that if you give him the whole chain he will likely take it, then kick you out anyway.  

There are 7 links in the chain, and each gold link is worth one night in the motel.  You decide that you will give him only one link per night's stay.

How many cuts do you have to make in order to have the proper number of links?

You have to back up your answer with verbiage...

Correct Jade.  Remember, you are smoking a pipe.  Your best bet is to start a fire right next to you.  The wind will carry it away from you (just as it is carrying the fire behind you toward you).  You wait until the brush cools down and then move into the burned area.  You will be safe in this area because there is no longer any fuel for the fire to burn.

One autumn afternoon you decide to stroll through the sprawling bushlands near your home. Puffing on your pipe, pondering some recent conundrum or riddle, you are oblivious to the outside world.

Your train of thought is momentarily broken by the oddly dark clouds appearing above you. Turning around, you see in the distance a rising wall of black smoke and wispy yellow tongues of flame creeping through the brush.

In a panic, you realize that a brush fire has cut you off from the road and safety!

A steady west wind is pushing the fire in your direction. You glance around for an escape route or shelter, but see only dried out grass, brush, and small shrubs for miles. The approaching blaze is no more than a few miles off, and will be upon your location within the hour. Everything around you will provide fast burning fuel for the fire. You are unlikely to survive in the fire long enough for the blaze to pass you by. You have no hope of outrunning the blaze.

What can you do?

I think the words pretty much mean the same thing.  

Asphyxiation- a state of asphyxia or suffocation. Condition caused by insufficient intake of oxygen.

 But the long and short of it is that one of the men ran out of air, right?

Sorry, my bad.  You did say yes, but to poker.  Is that correct?

Did the men have hopes of being rescued?