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Cal Ripkin Challenges - 2,632 in a Row (The hardest challenge in B&B)

Well, I broke my EDS streak this weekend. Shaved Friday night, went to run errands and through a series of increasingly annoying happenings, I didn't get back to the house until after midnight. I chose to go to bed instead of pretending to shave that night. I have reset my EDS count, however, I have not changed my brush or my razor for a while, so we can see how far those go.

Starting over is to be expected. I broke my 10,000-step streak after 26 days because I had a sore heel. I figured it would get too much worse if I didn't rest it. It snowed last night, so I may miss it again.
 
Well, I broke my EDS streak this weekend. Shaved Friday night, went to run errands and through a series of increasingly annoying happenings, I didn't get back to the house until after midnight. I chose to go to bed instead of pretending to shave that night. I have reset my EDS count, however, I have not changed my brush or my razor for a while, so we can see how far those go.
You make me sad but most people do so...
 
You make me sad but most people do so...


I made myself a little sad. But life happens and all we can do is move forward with new knowledge of our limitations. I will try harder this time to not make you sad. That said, I like some people, and some people are part of most people...so I am going to assume I am in at least some good company with making you sad.
 
I made myself a little sad. But life happens and all we can do is move forward with new knowledge of our limitations. I will try harder this time to not make you sad. That said, I like some people, and some people are part of most people...so I am going to assume I am in at least some good company with making you sad.
Typical human response :yesnod:

lol
 
Still going strong.
The wife is away for five days so it’s just me and the kids and my razor. I could shave their little heads?
 
The challenges are all going well.

This month's side challenge is the single blade in February. I decided to continue using the same blade I've been using since Jan 4th. It looks like it will easily make it until the end of February. If the blade is up to it, I'll continue using it through March. I'm still on the first edge, so it should make it.

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I'm on track to finish the step challenge 391 days early. I took a couple days off this week to rest a sore heel.

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If I keep on the current pace, I'll complete 2,632 10,000-step days in about eight years. I've given myself ten years to do it. Ten thousand steps is easy on days it's easy and hard on days it's hard.
 
This morning, I think I completed the transition back to being "just a regular shaver." The problem is, I can't be "just a regular shaver" if I'm logging every shave. So, I'm going to start logging one month at a time about every 30 days. It's just a matter of copying cells on a spreadsheet.
 
Still EDSing it.
todays shave was one of the best that I can remember. My wife gifted me a new soap and AS. I took it slow and used a Rapira SSS on its fourth shave with my more aggressive razor head. So enjoyable.
 
I discovered an error in my data for Williams Mug Soap. I started the challenge in May instead of March.

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The 10,000 step challenges are difficult. We had some snow and cold weather that slowed me down. I've stopped going to the gym because of "stuff" in the world. I'm isolating as much as possible.

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If I keep getting the same percentage of 10,000 step days, I'll finish in 2/20/29, about ten months ahead of the goal.
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I'm on track to finish 262 days early. I'll try to improve that number a bit this week.
 
Here is a riddle for another Cal Ripkin Variety challenge. The idea is to use a different combination every day for 2,632 shaves. Count only the Razor, blades, brushes and soaps. You may own up to eight of any one item. For instance, you can only use eight types of blades.

How many of each item would you own? Name them. (You may use names like R1, R2...R8).

You don't need to post the whole list. Those who solve the riddle will see an easy way to explain the list.

I've come up with three ways to solve this. The second way took me about 5 minutes once it came to me in a flash of insight. The first way took a few weeks to overthink it. The third way came to me in a flash of insight and took about ten seconds to figure out. The third way can be done easily without a computer.
 
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Here is a riddle for another Cal Ripkin Variety challenge. The idea is to use a different combination every day for 2,632 shaves. Count only the Razor, blades, brushes and soaps. You may own up to eight of any one item. For instance, you can only use eight types of blades.

How many of each item would you own? Name them. (You may use names like R1, R2...R8).

You don't need to post the whole list. Those who solve the riddle will see an easy way to explain the list.

I've come up with three ways to solve this. The second way took me about 5 minutes once it came to me in a flash of insight. The first way took a few weeks to overthink it. The third way came to me in a flash of insight and took about ten seconds to figure out. The third way can be done easily without a computer.

Here is a possible solution:

The prime factorization of 2,632 yields:

2,632 = 2^3 * 7 * 47

The closest integer to 47 that is a multiple of 8 is 48 = 8 * 6

Hence, you could break it down to (6, 7, 8, 8). This gives 2688 combinations.
 
Here is a possible solution:

The prime factorization of 2,632 yields:

2,632 = 2^3 * 7 * 47

The closest integer to 47 that is a multiple of 8 is 48 = 8 * 6

Hence, you could break it down to (6, 7, 8, 8). This gives 2688 combinations.

Nicely done. I'm assuming you can figure out the combinations.
 
Being a mathematician helps sometimes :D

Ah, then you will easily understand one of mine.

I counted in base 8 to 2632 in base 10. Well, my spreadsheet did it for me.

I named the items as below for Br, R, S, Bl

R(0), R(1)....R(7)

Here is a list of the first 16 combinations. Notice it starts on day zero.

1582379861874.png
 
Ah, then you will easily understand one of mine.

I counted in base 8 to 2632 in base 10. Well, my spreadsheet did it for me.

I named the items as below for Br, R, S, Bl

R(0), R(1)....R(7)

Here is a list of the first 16 combinations. Notice it starts on day zero.

View attachment 1065742

Nice!

It would be also interesting and a bit more challenging to compute an answer for the daily double crowd (two razors per shave).
 
Nice!

It would be also interesting and a bit more challenging to compute an answer for the daily double crowd (two razors per shave).

It's easy to do using the BASE function in Excel. You would have six items instead of four. If you have 3 of each item, there are 2,731 combinations. I put a different blade in each razor. Used the same brush and soap.

You can use this online base converter for a quick computation.
 
For more flexibility, use nested loops in VBA. It allows a person to easily set the parameters based on what they own.


 
It's easy to do using the BASE function in Excel. You would have six items instead of four. If you have 3 of each item, there are 2,731 combinations. I put a different blade in each razor. Used the same brush and soap.

You can use this online base converter for a quick computation.

It's a pity you resigned from the 2020 Sabbatical. I really enjoyed your puzzles.

What you describe is the case of dedicating some razors and blades per slot, e.g. you use one mild and one aggressive razor per shave, paired with a sharp and a less sharp blade, respectively. Similar to that but with 5 categories would be to do a first pass with a straight and a second one with a DE.

Another possibility is to combine razors and blades more randomly. Say you have 7 razors, 3 brushes, 7 soaps, 4 blade types and you choose 2 razors and 2 blades. Then you get,

C(7,2) * 3 * 7 * C(4,2) = 21 * 3 * 7 * 6 = 2,646

where C(x,a) = x! / (r! * (x-r)!) denotes the possible combinations of picking r number of items out of a pool of x.
 
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