It’s an all-new 5-day trivia hunt,
with an all-new set of puzzles, prizes, and now, a major sponsor!

Co-puzzle Master Josh Halbur and I are thrilled to announce that How Did You Know? now has its very own Geritol. Yes, the extraordinary video sharing site motionbox.com, which I’ve written about on this site before, is now sponsoring our monthly 5-day trivia hunt.

>> What does that mean for HDYK? We’ve got an investor interested in helping us take the game to the next level. So please, before you do anything else, mosey on over to motionbox.com and see all the amazing services they offer, most for free!

>> What does that mean for you gamers? Better prizes! Each month, motionbox.com will be giving out 3 prizes: a free premium subscription on their site; a Vado 8GB HD cam. Plus, the winner of the cam will get the opportunity to purchase a discounted premium membership on motionbox, as well.

>> How do you win? We’ve got new rules, so pay attention: anyone who submits any kind of answers at all, right or wrong, is now eligible for a prize. So long as you submit, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win the free, premium subscription to motionbox.com, worth $49.99. Next: the $199.99 Vado 8GB HD cam. Anyone who submits all the correct answers within 24 hours of the final puzzle post on day 5, will be eligible for a drawing for the this amazing little gadget that holds up to 2 hours in brilliant HD.

>> So what’s in it for the person/team who finishes first with all the correct answers? Bragging rights, as always, with your photo/bio posted on our site. But also two chances to win the motionbox.com prizes, and, as is our tradition here at the _floss, your pick of any t-shirt from our store.

There you have it! If you’re not a Fan of our Facebook page , be sure to add us so we can keep you updated, and you can get in on some pretty nifty clues throughout the week. If you’re new to our five-day hunt, you can read up on our new Rules page here. You’ll also want to check out last month’s hunt and read up on our defending champion Daniel Wilson. If you missed Day 1, that’s right this way; Day 2 is down yonder; Day 3 over here. Okay, ready to get your Hunt on? Click on through. NOTE WELL: ACK! We goofed. Hey, it happens. Rarely, but it happens. Directions in Level 1 should read: remove first four letters and LAST letter… sorry!

How well do you know THE neighborhood?

Fire up the quiz and find out. Oh, and whether you do well on the quiz or not, if you haven’t already, you’re going to want to check out our great post: 15 Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever.

It’s been well over a century since the first Sherlock Holmes adventure was published, and yet the master detective remains as popular as ever; witness the upcoming release of Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr., the Holmes-inspired television phenomenon that is House, M.D., and countless adaptations over the years. But what is it about this 19th century detective that we still find so compelling today? Why do modern-day detectives still study his methods and techniques? What can we still learn from Sherlock Holmes? I set out to answer those questions, and the result is my new book, The Sherlock Holmes Handbook: the Methods and Mysteries of the World’s Greatest Detective. All week I’ve been posting excerpts from it, which is available at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere. Hope you’ve enjoyed this little preview!

How to Outwit a Criminal Mastermind
“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order.” —Sherlock Holmes describing Professor Moriarty in “The Final Problem”

Powerful minds are not always drawn to the pursuit of good; there are those whose genius is tainted with criminality and who, as Holmes believed of his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, possess “hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind.” Like Holmes, you may discover that the crimes committed in your city are not the random work of unrelated thieves and killers but are connected—though subtly—in a giant web, at the center of which is a mastermind like Moriarty, controlling all from a seemingly untouchable remove. Until you can find proof admissible in a court of law that such is the case, however, your day-to-day casework will remain an unending, Sisyphean task; unless you can outwit the mastermind, your crime-solving efforts will address only the branches of evil, not the root. By undertaking the following methods, you may be able to take the fight to him.
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Every Friday, I post a series of unrelated questions meant to spark conversation in the comments. Answer one, answer all, respond to someone else’s reply, whatever you want. Very casual. On to this week’s topics of discussion…

1. “Would you like any M&M’s with that?”

I was buying cough medicine and an SD card. It was only natural the Walgreens cashier would ask.

More and more, retailers are trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of you at the register. Some of these efforts make sense. Batteries, for example. But others are a stretch. At a newsstand in the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Wednesday, I was asked if I needed a bottle of water to go with my gum. A big ad at the counter shows off the bottle, with the words “It’s Resealable!” doing their best to convince me. What’s the weirdest item you’ve been marketed during checkout?

2. Growing up, we lived near a guy who was really nice, but a bit too into the neighborhood kids for our parents’ comfort. (Two unrelated tangents: The first time we met him, the first words out of his mouth were, “Please don’t tell me who won the Red Sox-Blue Jays game. I taped it.” He also liked to dunk a mini-basketball in our 8-foot hoop when he didn’t think anyone was home.) On Halloween, he would invite the kids he recognized into his kitchen, where he was keeping the good candy—a full size Snickers bar and an ice-cold Coke. For the next few months, he would reference his generosity every time we interacted. We were all a little relieved when he moved.

That little anecdote doesn’t lead nicely into any particular question, so I’ll ask this one: What’s the strangest thing you ever received while trick-or-treating?

3. What’s something you’d really like to be good at, but know you’ll never put in the necessary time/effort? I am not very musical, but I’d love to play the harmonica. Seems like that would be a useful talent. Hearing people say, “Wow, I didn’t know you could play the harmonica!” would never get old.

That’s all for today. Happy Halloween!

[See all the previous Friday Happy Hour transcripts.]

All fall, you guys have been filling up our inbox with your best Halloween photos. Get in the holiday spirit by looking at some of our favorite submissions. Apologies for all the pagination—we don’t typically do that, but we also don’t typically stick 60 photos in a post. Enjoy!

Olivia sent in this picture of herself dressed as a ninja. No word on the identity or whereabouts of the hostage beside her.

Brian, Abby & Hannah Segool, circa 1993. (From Abby: “My parents started me on the road to nerd-dom early in life.”) (more…)

Lost Luggage

Dave Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell who wrote the popular internet song United Breaks Guitars has become a spokesman of a sort for beleaguered airline passengers. Carroll flew United Airlines again on Sunday on his way to speak to a group of customer service executives. Then he spent an hour at the baggage claim because United lost his luggage! Carroll was told by a United employee that he had to stay in baggage claim, and a customs official told him he had to leave. The bag didn’t show up until Wednesday. Carroll said United was the only airline he could fly from Saskatchewan to Colorado Springs. The luggage was returned to him on Wednesday.

The Silverware Swallower

A Dutch medical magazine asked its readers to send in their stories of strange medical cases. One respondent told the tale of Margaret Daalman, who came in to the hospital 30 years ago complaining of a stomach ache. An x-ray found 78 forks and spoons inside her! It wasn’t the first time Daalman had been treated for her habit of eating cutlery. The photos and x-rays were not made public until now. Daalman went into therapy after the surgery and is said to be doing well today.

Murder Mystery Guests Fail to Spot Actual Crime

A church group staged a murder mystery dinner theater in Yeovil, England on Saturday night. They spent the evening looking for crime clues, but failed to notice that thieves had taken a large TV, laptop computer and the contents of a safe the night before. Elim Pentecostal Church was the victim of a break-in Friday that went unnoticed until Sunday, despite the crime-solving party. The crime was finally noticed by Reverend Howard Davenport, whose car had been vandalized at the church earlier in the week.

Revd Howard Davenport said: “In situations like this you have to laugh really!

“We were obviously disappointed that the church had been targeted twice in a week, but when I heard that it hadn’t even been noticed I had to smile.

“You’d have thought that eight wannabe detectives might have noticed a real crime a few metres from them only hours earlier!”

10-foot Shark Nearly Bitten in Half by 20-foot Shark

A 10-foot Great White Shark had been hooked already by a baited drum line off the coast of Queensland, Australia when it was attacked and bitten by a much bigger fish. Based on the bite marks, the attacker is presumed to be a 20-foot long Great White shark. Swimmers were warned away from the area of Stradbroke Island.

One-legged Man Held After One Shoe Goes Missing

A clerk at a shoe store in Maldegem, Belgium discovered that a single shoe was missing on Monday. A suspect came immediately to mind -a one-legged man who had been in the shop. Police were alerted and quickly apprehended an amputee who fit the store employees’ description. The shoe was recovered, and the suspect, a Russian asylum-seeker, was handed over to authorities.

Chihuahua Smuggled in Luggage

Customs officials at the Dublin Airport at first thought the x-ray showed a toy dog in the suitcase, but they opened it up and out popped a live puppy! A Bulgarian man on a flight from Madrid was trying to smuggle the young chihuahua. Bring a chihuahua into Ireland is not illegal, but imported animals must have a health certificate and paperwork to travel internationally. The puppy was handed over to officials and was placed in quarantine. The man was not detained, but a file is being compiled on the case.

Cop Allegedly Pulls Gun At Haunted House

36-year Baltimore police sergeant Eric Janik took a tour of a staged haunted house with his 9-year-old daughter and three other people. At the end of the tour, Michael Morrison, who was working in character at the attraction, jumped out at Janik to scare him with a chainsaw, Michael Meyers-style. Janik allegedly drew his service revolver and pointed it at Morrison’s chest. Morrison dropped the chainsaw, which had no chain. Janik later denied the incident, saying he pointed the gun at the ground. Witnesses say Janik had been drinking.

“Callers said he seemed to be very intoxicated. In fact, the people inside the House of Screams noted that. When he was being processed, two of the officers noticed his speech was slurred and there was a moderate odor of alcohol coming from his breath. He didn’t seem to be taking this quite as seriously as he should have been,” said Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey.

Janik has been suspended from duty with pay while awaiting a hearing.

Admittedly, today’s Brain Game may prove difficult. If you don’t know the answer offhand (I wouldn’t have), a bit of research may make it clear. And this is just the type of trivia that seems destined to crop up on a game show someday. Good luck!

What do the names of these five presidents
- but no others – have in common?

William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter.

The Hierarchy of Monsters. Posted in response to io9′s online competition amongst monsters. (via Metafilter)
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Newsweek presents a pictorial history of birth control methods. We’ve come a long way since the Greek philosopher Aristotle recommended olive oil as a spermicide!
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Fifty-one years ago today, a scary mistake by a cardiologist led to the development of modern angiograms. Angiograms then led to coronary bypass surgery, which has saved countless lives.
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Top 11 Oddball Tax Deductions. People have deducted swimming pools, breast implants, and body oil from their income for tax purposes -and the IRS allowed it!
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A new direction for advertising? One company attached little banners to houseflies and set them free to spread their, um, message.
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The new movie The Box is based on the 1970 short story “Button Button”, which became a Twilight Zone episode. The Funny or Die version doesn’t follow either script.
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America’s Most Haunted: Six Seriously Spooky Sites. If the tales are retold enough times, any place can give you the creeps.

At the request of readers Melanie & Johnny, today’s “Feel Art Again” features Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). The Austrian artist overcame poverty in his youth to create paintings decorated with gold leaf, such as “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (above left) and “The Kiss”(above right).

1. Adele Bloch-Bauer, depicted in the painting above left, was the only person to be the subject of more than one Gustav Klimt portrait. His first painting of Bloch-Bauer, which measures 138 cm x 138 cm, took 3 years to complete and is considered the Austrian Mona Lisa. It was acquired in 2006 by Ronald Lauder, of the Estee Lauder fortune, for $135 million after a protracted legal dispute, which stemmed, in part, from the Nazi seizure of the portrait during WWII. The painting is featured in 3 documentaries: The Rape of Europa (2006), Stealing Klimt (2007), and Adele’s Wish (2008).

2. Klimt, who never painted a self-portrait, stated, “I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women…” The artist was renowned for his womanizing and fathered at least 14 children.
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October 31st is right around the corner, a night of wild indulgence and make believe. In honor of Halloween, tonight’s Late Movies look at some amazing, creative and downright dorky Halloween costumes.

For the nerd in all of us, here are two guys dressed as fully functioning iPhones. (more…)