******* The Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network******* >From The Desk Of
Maury Maille Puzzler Tower Car Talk Plaza Hahvahd Squayah Our Fair City This Week's Puzzler: An Amber-Colored Conundrum RAY: A few weeks ago, my younger son Andrew, who completed his junior year in college, decided to come home for a few days to reacquaint himself with his parents. TOM: Who, of course, are paying his tuition! RAY: Right. He wanted to refresh his memory in case he had to identify us at the inquest. He and I were driving around town, and he said, "Gee, I hadn't noticed that our town has changed a lot of its traffic signals to the new lights." Now, traffic lights basically consist of a lens, like a green or a yellow, or a red lens, and a light bulb behind the lens. When the bulb goes on, you see the green, or the yellow, or the red light. The new traffic lights, however, are light-emitting diodes. Instead of having one bulb, you have perhaps dozens of diodes that are shining the light. The new lights are much cheaper to operate and they're much brighter. TOM: And they don't all blow out all at once! RAY: Exactly. But, we noticed that there were some of the old lights still around. In fact, where they have put new ones in, they've replaced the green light and they've replaced the red light, but they haven't replaced the yellow lights. I say, "It must be that they don't make light emitting diodes in yellow...maybe that's why they haven't replaced them." We drove along a little farther, and Andrew says... TOM: "Au contraire, piston puss!" RAY: He says, "I think I have a better answer than that." And, I said, "Yeah, it's about time." And he said, "As a matter of fact, it is about time." And that's the hint. Why do we see new green lights and new red lights, but no new yellow lights? Think you know? Drop us a note via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html If you're right and we select your answer, we'll ship you a $26 Shameless Commerce Gift Certificate. Want to listen to Raymond obfuscate the puzzler in person? Listen anytime, at http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ ************ Remember last week's puzzler? A Frigid Flight to Safety RAY: Roger Meyer sent this puzzler to us. I always attribute the puzzler. There are no innocents here at Car Talk. Here it is: A group of explorers were trapped in Alaska for the winter season. Stuck in the ice and snow, they only had one means of escaping to civilization before spring. They had in their possession an old World War Two airplane with skis, which they could use in the event of an emergency. The plane had a placard on the instrument panel that said, in bold red letters, "Do not attempt to start engine with oil temperature below -40 degrees Fahrenheit." Did I mention it was cold? Well, wouldn't you know it, but a medical emergency arose, and when the pilot checked the oil temperature gauge, he discovered it was broken. As luck would have it, this being an international kind of team, all of their instruments were in Centigrade. Unfortunately, nobody could remember the formula for converting Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Skip, who had been carefully looking over the engine for the last couple of days, emerges from-are you ready for this-the inky shadows of the dimly lit Quonset hut. The others ask, "Do you know the formula for converting Centigrade to Fahrenheit?" He says, "I don't need no stinkin' formulas. But I know you can start the engine. It will be all right." They say, "Okie dokie!" And, sure enough they start the engine up, and it's fine. Of course, the propeller fell off-- but that's another story. The question is, how did Skip know they could safely start the airplane's engine? And here's the answerŠ http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ So, did you figure it out? Yours in weekly puzzler torment, Maury Maille Puzzler Dissemination Specialist Car Talk Plaza ******************* Doing some car research? Via our lousy, little homepage you can... *Check important safety recalls *See what your car is worth right now *Check rebates and incentives on new cars *Search your town for new or used cars for sale *Place an ad to sell your car that'll actually be seen by people in your area *Research and compare new vehicles *Get the latest car news *Kill time until 5:00 p.m. rolls around and you can pack it in *It's all at http://www.cartalk.com *********************************** Got more time to kill? This past weekend's new, lousy Car Talk show is now on the web site, at http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/ ******************** Help Ray lose the night sweats he's been getting, trying to come up with a decent puzzler each week. E-mail him your suggestion any time, via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html ******************** Puzzled out? You can unsubscribe to the Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network anytime at http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?puzzler_list=subscribe#psychic We'll forgive you.
