Still not dead (or king) - interlude

[johnpalmer]

I'm still thinking of how a person with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can fight back against the GOP, in hopes of making them sane again. Blogging is all I can think of. I'm not sure if I should try to blog elsewhere, or just say what I have to say here (or seeing if LongHairedWeirdo - my nom du blog - is available on LJ/DW). Any thoughts?

Interlude: At work, there are a collection of clever and cute bumper stickers. One bothered me for a long time... I finally figured it out recently, though.

It shows a picture of a brain, and a > (greater than) sign. On the right hand side, it had sigma (sum of) i = 1 to n, of (a picture of a bear)/n.

So:

brain picture > (sum from 1 to n) of (bearpicture)-sub-i, divided by n

Can you figure it out?

Hint: think cartoon

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Smarter than the average bear!

(It only took almost exactly three days. This is why I don't enter contests.)

Bingo!

[johnpalmer]

Three days isn't too bad - it took me weeks, seeing it every day. I'm not sure why I was sure it meant something, but I was... but I kept thinking in the wrong direction. "Your mind is greater than an imaginary bear? But why sum of n bear-times-i divided by n?" "A brain is greater than (n+1)/2 bears?"

(See, if it was the sum of bear, times the counting number, from 1 to n (one bear, two more bears, 3 more bears...), well the sum from 1 to n of the counting numbers is n(n+1)/2. Divide by n, it becomes (n+1)/2.)

I wish I could remember how and when I suddenly thought "it's an AVERAGE of bears!" at which point, it hit me.

It's fun, though, and a lot better than a legend I heard of a riddle on a radio show.

They asked "What's the first thing you know?"

Well, technically, they asked "What's 'the first thing you know'" - the inner quotes are *essential*, as you'll see.

People phone in guess after guess for three solid days, from the philosophical to the comical, pun-inspired and not. No one (so the legend goes) was ready for the real answer.

(I promise you: this is not a rickroll and is work safe.)
https://youtu.be/NwzaxUF0k18?t=16

The legend continues, quite reasonably for a legend, that a police escort was required to get the DJs out of the radio station.


(If you don't want to click on the link, I'll link the answer to this reply.)

Re: Bingo!

[johnpalmer]

In the theme song for an old comedy show, The Beverly Hillbillies[1], right after an "old mountaineer (so poor he can barely feed his family)..." discovered oil on his property, the song continues: "Well the first thing you know, old Jed's a millionaire".

So the answer to "'what's 'the first thing you know'?" is "old Jed's a millionaire."

[1] I'm 99% sure you know, or know of, the show. But since I work with people from other nations, I've gotten used to being certain that I explain some references. Apparently, I'm also used to people not randomly clicking links any more.