Vagaries

02:28 pm - Monday trivia ...

Since dhar-man is taking a long vacation, I decided to put one trivia together meself.

The theme is obvious. Here goes:

. This guy has a masters degree in electrical engineering and had once made
$10M in stock market, and promptly spent it on buying a cray supercomputer
with color monitor. Who?

. What do Madeline L'Engle and Snoopy have in common?

. He likes women with red hair, green eyes and whiskers. Who?

. This character was named and modeled on its creator's son who used to
give endless trouble to his parents. Who?

. Early in his career, he survived 15 bullets shots and gained super-human
strength by rubbing a hen's feather for luck. Later on he turned to a
different source for his strength. Who?

. This madly famous personality got its name from a music conductor of old
movies. Who?

. And this one is credited as the first "costumed" comic-book superhero. Again,
who?

. What is the similarity between Jon Arbuckle, Dilbert, Obelix, Dennis (the
menace), Jughead, and Tintin?

That's it. Answers (for unanswered) on Friday.

Current Mood: full

11:39 am - Muwaahaahaa

05:38 pm - puzzle time

I enjoyed solving this one - Give it a try ...

Cut the laughing guy into three identical regions. The three regions must have the same size
and shape, but may be rotated and/or reflected. You must follow the grid lines. You don’t
have to consider the eye.



As answer, enter the length (in linear units) of the circumference of one region.

07:00 pm - Chess Puzzle Help

02:17 pm - Trivia: Why are flags flown at half mast ?

Google says "The flag is theoretically not flown at "half" mast, but one flag's depth down from the masthead (in practice, it's often more than that) to allow for the "invisible flag of death" to be flown at the top of the mast. The idea goes back to mediaeval times".

In a random talk today, I asked the insufferable a hypothetical puzzle, which he wants me to put up here to
measure his answer against public opinion. So here goes:

"Suppose US flag is flown at half-mast on every death anniversary of every dead president. How many years _and_ prez
will it take for the flag to be at half-mast every day of the year."

We were looking for a probability/statistics answer. Fun answers are welcome too.

12:01 pm - Answer for the Simon Puzzle

< Quote >
In the last newsletter, I asked you to tell me how many strokes of the razor
I made when shaving that morning. The answer was 150 strokes, but I accepted
any answer between 100 and 200 strokes.

Apologies to those who were unable to enter due to lack of facial hair or an
abundance of it. Some people were concerned that it was a pointless and
impossible question, but I wanted to show that our intuition and memory can
mislead us. Most people initially guessed that the answer was about 25
strokes, but 24 hours later I received lots of correct entries, because
people had conducted an experiment. I suppose I was trying to show the power
of experiment over guesswork, memory and intuition.

< /Quote >

Mine was the entry with 25 :(

This month's puzzle was much simpler. My answer is already in :)

This puzzle is based on the new maths game Nubble! The game gives you 4
numbers and you have to derive a target number using the basic operations of
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. For example, how do you
make the number 40 from 1, 3, 4 and 6?
The answer is (6 + 4) x (3 + 1) = 40.

Your challenge is to make the number 1 from the numbers 1, 1, 1 and 5, and
you MUST use all four numbers.


ps: to subscribe to SS newsletter, visit http://www.simonsingh.net/Sign-up.html

08:44 am - Weekend Puzzle - Fantasy su do ku

An easy one. Normal Sudoku rules apply (a letter appears only once in each
column, each row and each 3x3 column). The numbers are replaced by creatures
from a certain fantasy world. To make the problem simpler, following extra
restrictions apply:

. Dwarves(D) and Elves(E) hate each other and cannot be horizontally or
vertically adjacent (diagonally adjacent is okay).
. Dwarves(D) and Trolls(T) hate each other and cannot be horizontally or
vertically adjacent (diagonally adjacent is okay).
. Vampires(V) like to be horizontally or vertically adjacent to
atleast one juicy warm bloodied Man(M). (diagonally adjacent is
not good enough). All men in the grid are juicy & warm bloodied.
. Luggage(L) feels comforted when its horizontally or vertically
next to atleast one Wizard(W). Diagonally adjacent is not good
enough.
. Gods (G) and Nac Mac Feegles(N), being Gods and Nac Mac Feegles, are
free to go anywhere and only have to obey the normal Sudoku Rules.

( The Grid )

09:33 am - Weekend Puzzle ...

Had not made a puzzle in a long time. Here's what I could manage today.

Battleships

Rules : Locate the 15-ship fleet in the grid: one 5-unit battleship, two 4-unit battleships, three 3-unit cruisers, four 2-unit destroyers and five 1-unit submarines. Each segment of a ship occupies a single cell. Ships are oriented either horizontally or vertically, and they do not touch each other, not even diagonally. The numbers on the right and bottom edges of the grid reveal the total number of ship segments that appear in each respective row or column. Some segments of the fleets are already exposed as a starting point.

( Grid Image )

You have to give coordinates of all ships in the fleet. (eg. Coordinate for the exposed submarine is A2)

Ranking:

< 2 mins : 100 pts.
2 - 5 mins : 70 pts.
5 - 10 mins : 50 pts.
10 - 15 mins : 20 pts.
15 - 20 mins : 5 pts.
20+ mins : 30 pts (for perseverance)

02:31 pm - Quick Shaving Survey ...

In his monthly newsletter, Simon Singh (code book, Fermat's last theorem, Big Bang) generally
 puts up a fun puzzle or  some kind of contest everytime. The winner gets a copy of one of his books.

This month's edition had a slightly weird question:

<simon singh>
How many shaving strokes did I make this morning? I will accept an answer
that is accurate to within 30 per cent. As far as I know, I am a fairly
typical shaver.

The best way to get the answer to my question is to count the number of
strokes you make yourself, or ask a brother or father or son if you are too
young or too female to shave. I am defining a stroke as a single downward or
a single upward motion of the blade such that the blade does not leave the
skin.

There will be 5 winners, who can receive a copy of 'Fermat's Last Theorem'
in English, Serbian, German or Italian.
</simon singh>

I have sent out my answer and I would like people to give their own estimates to
the correct answer. So, put out your guesses and let's see how close you get to
my answer and the real answer (which will be out sometime next month).

11:06 am - Answer: Connect Puzzle 2005-03-05

  Python + Michaelangelo + Kangaroo ...

   =

  Monty Python's Michaelangelo meets the Pope

   a.k.a The Last Supper

   (from Monty Python @ Hollywood Bowl)



( transcript )

01:36 pm - Pictionary ...

( clues )

Get it ?

07:09 pm - A Connect Puzzle

Connect the three pics below:

( Clue pics )