Today’s Micro Softy tests whether you are clever enough with math to code computers or be an engineer. Here’s the story:

Senator Kornn did not like Governor Friar. Both were from Texas. When Kornn learned that Governor Friar was visiting Washington, DC, Kornn said “This town’s not big enough for the both of us.”  So Kornn decided to leave DC for that period.

Kornn and Friar get on planes at the same time. One was at Reagan International Airport in DC and the other was at the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Airport. So each was flying to the other’s airport.

Both planes took off at the same time. After a while, Kornn looked out of his first-class window and saw Friar’s plane headed in the opposite direction. Kornn then looked at the screen on the back of the seat in front of him and saw that his plane was one quarter of the way to the DFW airport.

“Harrumph!”  Kornn muttered in disgust. “His plane is going faster than mine.”

This week’s Micro Softy is an old-fashioned story problem. How many times faster was Friar’s plane going than Kornn’s?

Hint: The distance between the two airports is 1,190 miles (1,915 kilometers) but you don’t need to know that to solve the problem.

Solution to Micro Softy 53:  Kicking the Door In

Here’s the puzzle from last week:

Four men in a truck with faces covered invade a mansion, forcibly drag out a screaming girl, and restrain an older woman who tries to intervene. Sweating, they bring out valuables from the house and place them on the front lawn next to their truck. But after calming down, the older woman thanks the men and kisses each of them on the cheek as a thanks.

Huh? Here’s what was actually happening:

The men are firemen. The truck is a fire truck. The screaming girl is a baby saved from the fire. Once she calmed down enough to understand the situation, the baby’s mother was thankful.

Here are the puzzles from the last three weeks:

Monday Micro Softy 53: Kicking In the Door To solve this puzzle, you will need to sharpen your abductive reasoning skills. There are actually two possible solutions to last week’s puzzle, depending on how you interpret the pattern of the arithmetic.

Monday Micro Softy 52: Elon Musk parody asks: Are you a genius? The puzzle comes from a parody X account but it is a genuine stumper. Last week’s puzzle is easy to solve if we recall how many parents a child needs and of what type…

and

Monday Micro Softy 51: A tale of two auto mechanics I recognized the two mechanics when I went to the garage… To solve Microsofty 50, about cutting a loaf of cornbread into eight pieces by making three slices, try thinking in three dimensions.

The Monday Micro Softy is a weekly feature of Mind Matters News. Here are the links to all the puzzles and answers to date:

Monday Micro Softy 50: Cutting through the cornbread. How did Yuri Senior cut the cornbread into eight identical portions using only three straight cuts? You can guess the answer to Microsofty 49 if you try the test question yourself at home, using a small mirror. Links to Microsofties 46 through 49 are here as well.

Image Credit: Oleksiy - Adobe Stock

Monday Micro Softy 45: Can Tony beat the fast-food curfew? An early curfew on fast food service motivated a boy to exercise more vigorously. But how fast was he pedaling? To solve Micro Softy 44, recall that Tony doesn’t need to take the individual pills each day, only the prescribed amount of each. You will find links here to Micros Softies 41 through 44 as well.

Monday Micro Softy 40: The fate of a false prophet. He wasn’t actually fired for being a false prophet but for something that his prophecy unintentionally revealed. The solution to Micro Softy 39 lies in considering an alternative possible meaning of a word commonly used in sports. You will also find links to Micro Softies 30 through 39 and their answers here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 29: A funeral lament in four lines. The funeral director was puzzled by Dan’s description of his relationship to the deceased but there was no question that his grief was sincere Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 22 through 29.

Monday Micro Softy 21: Finding More of the Deadly Fentanyl Pills. Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 11 through 20 as well.

Monday Micro Softy 11: What Happened to That Other Dollar? Here you will find links to the first ten Micro Softies. Have fun!