NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 25): What's Perceptible in Non-Perception

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 25): What's Perceptible in Non-Perception:

Q: Take the word non-perception. Rearrange its 13 letters to name three things that are in the same category. What are they?

Given some of the recent NPR puzzles, I was in my element solving this one in no time at all.

A: COPPER, NEON, TIN

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 18): Reading Forward and Backward

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 18): Reading Forward and Backward:

Q: Take the word debunk, starting with the b inside, read the letters forward and you get bunk. And starting with the b and reading backward, you get bed. Together, these two words spell bunk bed. Now, think of a word with an m inside, starting with the m and reading forward, you'll get one word, and starting with the m and reading backward, you get another word. And together these two words make a job title. What is it?

This puzzle is so simple, you don't need any hints from me. I'll post my answer sometime Thursday after time has expired, or when I get 'round to it.
Edit: Okay, time is up... now you're getting a ticket

A: diameter --> meter maid

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 13) - Roadside brand = phonetic opposites

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 13) - Roadside brand = phonetic opposites

Q: Take a familiar brand name, seen along roads and highways in the United States. It has five letters, two syllables. The first syllable, phonetically, is a word that is the opposite of the word spelled by the second syllable. What brand name is it?

We know the answer isn't Burma Shave. What else is popular along roadways? It must be a restaurant name or gasoline brand... I'll let you know my answer after the deadline.
Edit: Okay, it's after the deadline, so here is my answer:

A: CITGO (Sit, Go)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 6) - A Beast of a Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 6) - A Beast of a Puzzle:

Q: Take the names pelican and antelope, the first is a bird the second a mammal. The last two letters of pelican are the first two letters of antelope, and the last two letters of antelope are the first two of pelican, completing a loop. Can you name another bird and mammal that this is true of? These should be the general name of the bird and mammal not a specific breed or gender. Hint: Each is a single word no more than eight letters.

I think I have the answer to this. My hint is that the letter 'e' does not appear in either the name of the bird or the mammal.
Edit: I'm still not sure if this is the intended answer, but I think it meets the puzzle statement.

A: CARDINAL --> ALPACA

A Sequence Puzzle of my Own Devising

I was just fiddling with numbers recently and came up with the following sequence:
4, 5, 5, 6, 14, 11, 8, 11, 8, 8, 13...
Can anyone tell me what the next few terms in the sequence might be? Here's a cryptic hint: 'geometry'
Edit: There's a free cherry pie for whomever can get their mind 'round this puzzle and come up with the answer...
Edit: Cherry pi? Since I posted this puzzle, my sequence has been accepted to the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. To generate the sequence, take the digits of pi: 3. 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9 7 9... If you take the sum of each consecutive digit (3+1), (1+4), (4+1), (1+5) etc. you get 4, 5, 5, 6, 14 and so forth. So the next few terms are 17, 16, 16... And did anyone notice the time on the posting?

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 30) - Eli, before and after

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 30) - Eli before and after

Q: Take the name Eli and add three letters in front of it. Add the same three letters in reverse order after it to complete a familiar two-word phrase in nine letters. What is it?
Hint: The answer is something this puzzle has.

This one doesn't take much work to figure out. I found the hint wasn't that useful for finding the answer, but did serve as a confirmation, once I had found the answer. As always, I can't reveal my answer until after the deadline.
Edit: Your time is up!

TIM + ELI + MIT --> Time Limit

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 16) - Multiplication Magic Square

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 16) - Multiplication Magic Square

Q: In a standard 4 by 4 magic square you arrange the digits from one to sixteen so each row, column and corner diagonal totals 34. This is a multiplication magic square: Arrange sixteen numbers in a four by four square so that the product of each row, column and corner to corner diagonal is 5,040. You can use any numbers you want. But they have to be whole numbers and you can't repeat a number in the square. (And as a hint I'll tell you the number in the upper left corner is 42.)

Finally! A mathematical/number puzzle instead of a word puzzle! I do have an answer to the puzzle. In fact I have several since the answer is non-unique. In addition to solutions that have 42 in the upper left, and solutions that have 42 elsewhere in the puzzle, I found solutions that don't have 42 at all! As usual, I won't post any answers until after the deadline. My one hint: prime factorization.
Edit: Okay, after all that work and no one called me from NPR. Check the following PDF for the solution(s).

Magic Square Answer(s)

Edit: Since this posting, I've found 8 other arrangements that I previously missed (with 30 in them). That brings the total to 80, not 72.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 9) - Non-rhyming words starting M, N and ST

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 9) - Non-rhyming words starting M, N and ST

Q: Take the words MAY, NAY, and STAY. Except for their opening letters, M, N and ST, they're spelled the same and they rhyme. Can you name three common, un-capitalized words, starting with M, N and ST, that again are spelled the same except for these opening letters? None of the words rhyme with any of the others. The lengths of the answers are for you to determine.

Initially, I figured the answers had to be one syllable and if MONE had been a word, I would have had NONE and STONE. Instead, the answer I came up with had two-syllables for each of the non-rhyming words. Can you come up with an answer? As always, I'll reveal my answer later in the week.
Edit: When will NPR ever call me? Not this week I guess so once again here's the answer I submitted.

A: MATURE, NATURE and STATURE are the three words I came up with that have the same ending but don't rhyme.

History of Sudoku

All of us, by now should have heard of Sudoku... if you haven't, you must have been living in a box. Or maybe it is the other way around, those of us that are hooked on Sudoku are now living in a box (in the form of a 9x9 grid).

Anyway, if you have always wondered about how this little number puzzle came about, it actually first appeared in the U.S. in the May 1979 issue of Dell Pencil Puzzles & Word Games where it was called Number Place. It is believed to be the creation of a retired architect named Howard Garns, age 74 at the time.

Several years later, in 1984 it was adopted by a puzzle group in Japan and named "Suuji Wa Dokushin Ni Kagiru" ("the numbers must be single") As it became popular, this was shortened to Sudoku (Su=number, doku=single) and was trademarked.

Other magazines in Japan, soon copied the puzzle but went with the more generic name Nanbaapureesu (phonetically "Number Place") and often just used the English spelling. Later when it was rediscoved in the U.S. and the U.K. it was titled "Sudoku" which leads to an interesting scenario. Japanese speakers call it by its English name (Number Place) and English speakers call it by its Japanese name (Sudoku).

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 2) - Four-letter O-word

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 2) - Four-letter O-word

Q: Think of a four-letter word starting with O. Change one of its letters to a new letter and rearrange to get a new four-letter word that's a synonym of the first. Then change one of its letters to a new letter and rearrange to get a third four-letter word that's a synonym of the first two. What words are these?

I think there is only one answer that fits the clues of this puzzle... but I'm not going to give you the answer until after the deadline.
Edit: Yes, I believe there is ONLY one answer that fits the clues...

ONLY --> LONE --> SOLE