Wonderful Stuff, That Romulan Ale
At the end of The Other Page #3, which I'm sure caused printers from here to Sherman Oaks to get a little lower on toner, a Dodgeball Riddle Quiz Contest challenged you to name the 3 errors in the sentence:
"There is three things worng with this sentence."
Entries numbered so high that the prize notifiers in Ellenton, FL crashed their previously infallible systems. Anyway, one person in particular who I don't think I'm allowed to link to was very unhappy that she didn't answer correctly. Here is the explanation I offered her:
It is widely believed that the third error is "the sentence is a false statement" -- even by the riddle's creator who I assume was an English Lit grad, with a vagina no less, trying to be clever -- but I completely disagree.
Any math, science, or philosophy student who's worth their weight on Jupiter would know that claiming the third error is the statement's falsehood would in fact make the sentence TRUE in a self-cancelling loop program and you're back at square one with only two easily provable errors.
As I said before, you are looking into the abyss of two mirrors facing each other, you're dividing by zero with an abacus, you're standing in the same room with Clark Kent and Superman.
So what's the answer? Well I've only seen one Star Trek movie in my life and that was number 2, the Wrath of Kahn (it was that special time in one's youth when watching movies on cable was an exercise in brain-engraving) and there's a scene with William Shatner and Kirstie Alley talking about solving a command training scenario called the Kobyashi Maru. It is in fact a challenge with a no-win solution and Captain Kirk was the only person to ever solve it by cheating and changing the rules.
The answer to this riddle is easy: ignore it.
"There is three things worng with this sentence."
Entries numbered so high that the prize notifiers in Ellenton, FL crashed their previously infallible systems. Anyway, one person in particular who I don't think I'm allowed to link to was very unhappy that she didn't answer correctly. Here is the explanation I offered her:
It is widely believed that the third error is "the sentence is a false statement" -- even by the riddle's creator who I assume was an English Lit grad, with a vagina no less, trying to be clever -- but I completely disagree.
Any math, science, or philosophy student who's worth their weight on Jupiter would know that claiming the third error is the statement's falsehood would in fact make the sentence TRUE in a self-cancelling loop program and you're back at square one with only two easily provable errors.
As I said before, you are looking into the abyss of two mirrors facing each other, you're dividing by zero with an abacus, you're standing in the same room with Clark Kent and Superman.
So what's the answer? Well I've only seen one Star Trek movie in my life and that was number 2, the Wrath of Kahn (it was that special time in one's youth when watching movies on cable was an exercise in brain-engraving) and there's a scene with William Shatner and Kirstie Alley talking about solving a command training scenario called the Kobyashi Maru. It is in fact a challenge with a no-win solution and Captain Kirk was the only person to ever solve it by cheating and changing the rules.
The answer to this riddle is easy: ignore it.
