Great programmers must know when they are being phished. Here’s this week’s Micro Softy to test your detection ability. The presentation of this Micro Softy is a bit longer than usual, so grab a cup of coffee and prepare to think.

It was 1948. Wealthy investment banker, Geardown Geko, received a short letter from an anonymous source in April, immediately before hockey’s Stanley Cup finals. It read: “I am gifted with powers to predict the future. Because of circumstances, I am not able to personally profit from this gift. But I can share my forecasts with those who can. I know that this seems too good to be true, so I will in future correspondence prove I have this gift. I’m sharing these predictions with a short list of investors who, I hope, will at some point pay a fee for my foresight. Here is my first forecast of the future. The Toronto Maple Leafs will defeat the Detroit Red Wings to win hockey’s 1948 Stanley Cup.”

A few days later, a second note was received. It read: “In the BAA [now the NBA] finals, the Baltimore Bullets will defeat the Philadelphia Warriors to win the 1948 World Championship in Basketball.”

Although both predictions came true, Geko was not impressed. It still smelled like a scam. But accurate forecasts kept dribbling in.

The next read: “The Cleveland Indians will beat the Boston Braves in baseball’s World Series.” And that’s what happened.

The next prediction dealt with politics: “Harry Truman will defeat Thomas Dewey in the election for President of the United States.”

When Truman won the election, Geko was impressed. Dewey, not Truman, was heavily favored to win the presidential contest.

The last prediction of 1948 had an added note:

I hope by now you see that I have a gift for seeing into the future. But I am under scrutiny and am not able to bet personally. I will offer one last free prediction. After that, you can purchase predictions for $10,000 each [about $130,000 in 2025 dollars]. I give instructions below on getting the money to me if you are interested. The money trail is untraceable and protects me in my current precarious position. Here’s this week’s prediction: The Philadelphia Eagles will beat the Chicago Cardinals in the NFL Championship Game.

The forecast was correct. This was five accurate predictions in a row with 50-50 odds of 32 to 1. Geko figured this was better than the odds he got on any stock tip he ever got. So he paid the fee for the next two predictions which were:

• The 1949 Stanley Cup being won by the Toronto Maple Leafs and
• The Minneapolis Lakers winning the 1949 basketball championship.

Geko bet heavily on both games, won, and more than quintupled the money he paid to his tipster. The price per tip was later raised to $15,000 but was worth it. Geko increased his bets. The tipster’s predictions continued to be accurate.

The tips stopped coming in after the tenth tip.

Even though he won big, Geko was phished.

So the Micro Softy this week is this: How could this be phishing even though Geko made lots of money? There was no criminal activity involved in the outcomes of any of the contests.

What was the tipster’s game?

Solution to Micro Softy 63: A Beggar’s Tale

Here’s last week’s Micro Softy.

At a traffic light, Carl and I see a homeless man, Freaky Bob, holding a sign asking for help. Carl, amused, offers Bob a choice between a $5 and a $10 bill, and Bob, dancing joyfully, picks the $5. When Freaky Bob returns to his corner, Carl laughs, calling Bob foolish for always making the same stupid choice.

But Freaky Bob is not so foolish. Carl told me he first saw his friend John offer Freaky Bob the same choice. Then Carl remarked: “[Freaky Bob] does that every time. It cracks me up!”

Here’s Freaky Bob’s strategy. If he had taken the $10, he’d have lost repeat customers. Nobody would’ve been entertained. Choosing the $5 kept people coming back with more cash, proving far more lucrative for him in the long run.

Freaky Bob was a shrewd beggar.

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 63: A Beggar’s Tale. Exceptional nerds are psychologists who see through surface actions. Such a skill is required to solve last week’s Micro Softy. The solution to Freaky Bob’s strategy is: If he had taken the $10, he’d have lost repeat customers. Nobody would’ve been entertained. Choosing the $5 kept people coming back with more cash, proving far more lucrative for him in the long run. You can find puzzles 55 through 63 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 62: The Ordeal of Sisyphus Fats. The best computer programmers and engineers must be good at scheduling. Last week’s Micro Softy tests this ability and the solution is that Sisyphus Fats took 98 minutes to push the large bowing ball to the top of the 100-foot hill. You can find puzzles 55 through 62 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 61: Micro Softy Take Five was more of a trivia question than it was a puzzle. To solve Micro Softy 61, the answer is the theme for the Mission Impossible movie franchise starring Tom Cruz. You can find puzzles 55 through 61 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 60: Here’s a puzzle from Gunsmoke Told to “get out of Dodge”after a shooting, a gunslinger does so at a nearly inexplicable time. Can you solve the puzzle?
To solve Microsofty 59, recall that direction of air flow is due to pressure — not size. Which tire is under more pressure? You can find puzzles 56 through 59 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 55: “It happens every spring.” Baseball, that is. Here’s a puzzle that takes in baseball’s summer. To solve last week’s puzzle, you don’t need to know the distance. Check the problem again for the number you do need to know. You can find puzzles 51 through 54 here as well.

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.

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!