I know the answer for having taken this test some 20 years ago (I failed then).

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

Put the barometer into a time capsule, along with a note asking future time travellers to look up how tall the building was and zap you the answer back through time to about five minutes from now.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

I am human. Fully human.

Here's another "dotty" puzzle:

Given the following 12 points:
join them with only 5 straight lines drawn without lifting the pen etc.

Tough version: start with the pen on one of the inner 4 dots.

Here is one solution for the easy version: solution 1. Start at either one of the top two points.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

Well done TBC - of course by rotation that works for any of the 8 outer points. Now how about the tough version?

I got the hard version. You can see it Here. The top three diagrams are 3 additional solutions to the basic version. The bottom drawing is a solution the hard version. The key, apparently, is that no point has more than one line passing through it. For the 4 solutions I have to the basic version, note that the original solution and the far left solution are variations on the same basic idea while the middle and right solutions are also variations on the same basic idea.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

Great job. My solution to the tough version was basically your top-middle path, where with minor adaptation the path can start on the top right of the inner points.

Not revisiting points is therefore not a requirement for the tough solution, although it would be one hell of an additional constraint.

I did it in one line, does a 6 inch paint brush count?

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Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, people want to be entertained.

Well done, how are you going to get the paint off your monitor?

Or just measure the string.

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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those … moments will be lost … in time … like tears … in rain. Time … to die.

I used varnish so I could see the results!

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Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, people want to be entertained.

New box to think outside of:

You have a perfect string (no stretch) that's snug around a perfect planet ()no squeeze). You increase the length of the string by 1 inch then pull up. How high off the ground will you lift the string?

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

I am human. Fully human.

half an inch?

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P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.

-- Mitch Hedberg

But you could do that by pinching and tightening the rest of the string, and pulling up the one inch loop. Letting the rest of the string loose, you can go much higher. I used a simple excel spreadsheet solver (assuming a spherical planet about the size of the Earth, with a 4000 mile radius), and it seemed to come up with 414.6 inches.

Assuming that you want a uniform height to the string: since you increase the circumference by 1 inch, you can increase the radius by 1/2pi inches. In real units that's 4mm.

Edit to add: On the pull-up to the horizon on an Earth-sized planet I got 413 inches (10.49m), close enough the same as hhEb09'1.

With regards to the dots puzzle on page 1 ....

I drew a Z which is three lines, then a - through the middle for the 4th line. All the dots are now connected.

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Time cube is evil.