Today's Puzzle
Friday, February 12
Abe's heart attack was caused by firecrackers; George's by eating too many donuts.
This sentence is, if you like, a very short story. But it's also timely. How many sly references to current/upcoming observances can you spot?
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
I see this picture ALL THE TIME on my computer. It's never what I was looking for. Why does this happen?
(That's it. That's the puzzle.)
Solution
This goofy photo is the illustration from the Wikipedia page Shrug. As such, it is also shown on the front page of Google results for shrug. I perform this search frequently when I want a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to copy and paste.
I was hoping some of you would either (1) have had this experience or (2) be primed by the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at the end of my solution to the previous puzzle, but it seems this puzzle could have used some more explicit clues!
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Jason and the Greggs, and honorary credit to those who saw the puzzle and simply… shrugged. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
About This Site
Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."
Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.
Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to December 2020.