An ancient Egyptian puzzle

An Arabic merchant willed that his 17 camels be divided amongst his 3 sons in the proportions 1/2, 1/3, and 1/9. You are a clever lawyer who is trusted to execute the will. How will you do it without slaughtering any animal?!

(This one carries 1.5 points)

Strange matrices from a dark auditorium...

Consider a matrix M, such that the sum of every row is the same as the sum of every column. That is, if you sum any row or column, it amounts to the same number. For example, with a sum of 18, M could be

9 2 7
4 6 8
5 10 3

Is it possible to construct a matrix M such that the sum of all its elements = 2^99 - 1?

Original problem courtesy six hours of trecherous pain during a training session a la the movie Office Space!

Note: Please include sisyphus' valid cribs in the comments section and the corrections concerning them...

Belt the answer out, if you can!

If a belt were placed around the Earth's equator, and then had six meters of length added to it, and you grabbed it at a point and lifted it until all the slack was gone, how high above Earth's surface would you be?

Note: This might sound like a very simple problem but... :-)

This is especially to counteract the disappointment of last problem!

When do I take off?

You made millions in GOOG shares and is now the proud owner of a light aircraft to make your lunch trips from office to home (of course, home is situated on a hill overlooking the oceans in the distance and near a forest with ferns). While you are rich and smart, you still carry a peculiar grad student attribute much to your wife's annoyance: you dont find the necessity to lunch at any fixed time in the afternoon.

It takes 15 minutes one way on a calm day without any wind and you spend 30 minutes at home to eat. Your house is due so
uth of your airport (which adjoins your office). You notice that the wind always blows along the north-south axis throughout the year.

All things being the same, the wind being the only variable, what should your strategy be to minimize the time of flight?

ps: Wild shots are now accepted!

A Lewis Carrol puzzle!

The White Queen tells the following riddle to Alice in Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll never answers it in the book. Let us see if you can!

'First, the fish must be caught.'
That is easy: a baby, I think, could have
caught it.
'Next, the fish must be bought.' That is easy: a penny, I think, would have
bought it.

'Now cook me the fish!'
That is easy, and will not take more than a minute.
'Let it lie in a dish!'
That is easy, because it already is in it.

'Bring it here! Let me sup!'
It is easy to set such a dish on the table.
'Take the dish-cover up!'
Ah, that is so hard that I fear I'm unable!

For it holds like glue-
Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the
middle:
Which is easiest to do,
Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the
riddle?

Cold Calculations

Winter approaches and its time to face the snow in Minneapolis. As you turn on the morning news on your dark green Jaguar's radio as you leave for office (with a voice command of course), you hear the weather report.

The snow begins to fall before 12:00pm and falls at a constant rate. Minneapolis sends out its first snow plow truck at noon and it begins removing snow at a constant rate (in cft/min). At 1.00 pm, it has gone 2 miles. At 2.00 pm, it has gone 3 miles, and is still not retracing its path. At what time did the snow start to fall?