- published: 07 Jul 2016
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A riddle is a statement or question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundra, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer.
Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Hamnett analyzes African riddling from an anthropological viewpoint.
Defining riddles precisely is hard and has attracted a fair amount of scholarly debate. One definition famous in Anglophone scholarship is that of Alan Dundes and Robert A. Georges: 'a riddle is a traditional verbal expression which contains one or more descriptive elements, a pair of which may be in opposition; the referent of the elements is to be guessed'. In some traditions and contexts, riddles may overlap with proverbs. Thus 'Nothing hurts it, but it groans all the time' can be deployed as a proverb (when its referent is a hypocrite) or as a riddle (when its referent is a pig).
Dennis Elliot Shasha is a professor of computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, a division of New York University. His current areas of research include work done with biologists on pattern discovery for microarrays, combinatorial design, network inference, and protein docking; work done with physicists, musicians, and professionals in finance on algorithms for time series; and work on database applications in untrusted environments. Other areas of interest include database tuning as well as tree and graph matching.
After graduating from Yale in 1977, he worked for IBM designing circuits and microcode for the IBM 3090. While at IBM, he earned his M.Sc. from Syracuse University in 1980. He completed his Ph.D. in applied mathematics at Harvard in 1984 (thesis advisor: Nat Goodman). Professor Shasha is a prolific author, researcher, tango dancer, climber, and public speaker. He has written six books of puzzles, five of which center on the work of a mathematical detective by the name of Jacob Ecco, a biography about great computer scientists (coauthored by freelance journalist Cathy Lazere), and technical books relating to his various areas of research. In his non-academic writings, perhaps his greatest invention is the notion of omniheuristics, a kind of super-heuristics concerned with the ability to solve any and all manner of puzzles, conundrums, enigmas, and dilimmas. Owing their decidedly curious character, he has given particular note to puzzles that start off easy, but have apparently innocent variants that are particularly perplexing; he calls them 'upstarts'.
Derek Abbott (born 3 May 1960, in South Kensington, London, UK) is a physicist and electronic engineer.
In the 1969-1971 period, he was a boarder at Copthorne Preparatory School, Sussex, UK.
During 1971-1978 he attended the Holland Park School London.
In late 1977, he began work at GEC Hirst Research Centre, Wembley, UK, performing research in the area of CCD and microchip design for imaging systems. Whilst working, he graduated in 1982 with a BSc in Physics from Loughborough University,. In 1986, he began work as a microchip designer at Austek Microsystems in Adelaide, Australia. In 1987, he joined the University of Adelaide completing his PhD thesis in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in 1995, entitled GaAs MESFET Photodetectors for Imaging Arrays, under Kamran Eshraghian and Bruce R. Davis.
He became a fellow of the IEEE in 2005 "for contributions to analysis of noise and stochastic phenomena in vision systems".
Actors: Noble Willingham (actor), Sean Young (actress), Bill Zuckert (actor), Alice Drummond (actress), David Margulies (actor), Courteney Cox (actress), Raynor Scheine (actor), Mark Margolis (actor), Udo Kier (actor), Troy Evans (actor), Antoni Corone (actor), Jim Carrey (actor), John Capodice (actor), James G. Robinson (producer), Gary Barber (producer),
Plot: To be a Pet Detective, you have to understand both the criminals and animals. Ace Ventura goes even further... He behaves like a criminal animal. When a football team's mascot (a dolphin) is stolen just before the Superbowl, Ace Ventura is put on the case. Now, who would want to steal a dolphin, and why?
Keywords: 1990s, american-football, animal, aquarium, ass, bare-butt, bird, bodyguard, boy-dog-relationship, braActors: Nick Cave (writer), David Field (actor), John Flaus (actor), John Flaus (miscellaneous crew), Nick Cave (composer), Nick Cave (actor), Blixa Bargeld (composer), Mick Harvey (actor), Mick Harvey (composer), Bogdan Koca (actor), Vincent Gil (actor), Peter Lawless (actor), Mike Bishop (actor), Chris DeRose (actor), John Hillcoat (director),
Plot: The inmates and guards of a modern, clean and efficient maximum security wing are slowly and increasingly brutalised until they erupt in violence. Dark and macabre, and based in truth, the story is told in a traditional dramatic style combined with telephone interviews and narration.
Keywords: anger, australia, bare-chested-male, blood, blood-splatter, depression, drugs, ellipsis-in-title, gay-interest, hangingActors: John Ireland (actor), Burgess Meredith (actor), Norman Lloyd (actor), John Kellogg (actor), Alvin Hammer (actor), George Offerman Jr. (actor), Sterling Holloway (actor), Dana Andrews (actor), Richard Conte (actor), Steve Brodie (actor), Richard Benedict (actor), Lloyd Bridges (actor), Huntz Hall (actor), Matt Willis (actor), George Tyne (actor),
Plot: In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to blow up a bridge next to a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount. Unusually realistic picture of war as long quiet stretches of talk, punctuated by sharp, random bursts of violent action whose relevance to the big picture is often unknown to the soldiers.
Keywords: based-on-novel, battle-fatigue, infantry, italian-american, italy, landing-craft, mental-breakdown, patrol, reference-to-marlene-dietrich, sergeantActors: Gene Alsace (actor), Roscoe Ates (actor), Silver Tip Baker (actor), Hank Bell (actor), Monte Blue (actor), Dick Botiller (actor), Ed Brady (actor), Al Bridge (actor), Charles Brinley (actor), Bob Burns (actor), Budd Buster (actor), Horace B. Carpenter (actor), Allan Cavan (actor), George Chesebro (actor), Ernie Adams (actor),
Plot: A short plot summary finds Wild Bill Hickok ('Bill Elliott (III)' (qv)), the U.S. Marshal in Abilene, Kansas, opposing the Phantom Raiders, a gang of renegades raiding the cattle drives over the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Abilene. Hickok organizes the boys of the town into the "Flaming Arrows" to assist him. Finally, in the 15th chapter, "Trail's End", Hickok, the "Flaming Arrows" and army scout Kit Lawson ('Kermit Maynard' (qv)) combine to put an end to the Phantom Raiders.
Keywords: 1870s, abilene-kansas, actor-shares-first-name-with-character, ambush, b-movie, b-western, bar-shootout, barfly, bartender, bear-attackActors: Robert Z. Leonard (director), Conrad Nagel (actor), Lewis Stone (actor), Louise Fazenda (actress), Fanny Hatton (writer), Frederic Hatton (writer), Claude Gillingwater (actor), Marguerite De La Motte (actress), Alice D.G. Miller (writer), Richard Wayne (actor), Paulette Duval (actress), Samuel Shipman (writer),
Genres: Comedy, Drama,Actors: Corinne Griffith (actress), Robert Gaillard (actor), Bernard Siegel (actor), Denton Vane (actor), Earle Williams (actor), Paul Scardon (director), Billie Billings (actress), Helmer Walton Bergman (writer), Jack Ellis (actor), Thomas Edgelow (writer),
Genres: Drama,He's the riddle what has two eyes that cry constantly
For your love you guessed it's me
He's the riddle who has two arms that long deseprately
For your love you guessed it's me
And your love was once all the treasure I'd known now that's gone
Gone on wings of a wild dream now I'm all alone
One more riddle what has one heart that beats faithfully
For your love you guessed it's me
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