| Sunday Puzzle – 5-July-2009 – grid of nine letters |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|08:03 pm] |
Look at the following grid of nine letters. Imagine the nine letters are in a grid of nine boxes. Staring at any letter, you can make up words by moving up, down, left, right or diagonally. You may reuse letters, and your path can cross itself.
(For example, if you started at ‘I’, you could move right to ‘O’, back left to ‘I’ and then diagonally to ‘E’, to make up IOIE ... although that’s not the start of any word I can think of.)
What is the longest word you can create?
I O M
T E A
C L S
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.) |
|
|
| 4 - July |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|05:39 pm] |
|
Happy Fourth of July to Americans. |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 28-June-2009 – 6 letters |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|09:50 pm] |
(I didn’t post a puzzle on Sunday 21st June.)
There are very few words in English of the form 123423, that is words that have four different letters arranged according to that pattern. In the following are two such words, with two letters given in each. Can you fill in the remaining letters to complete the words?
M _ _ G _ _
M _ _ H _ _
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 3/4 April weekend puzzle.) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 14-June-2009 – 3 letters |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|11:56 pm] |
(I think this is too easy myself.)
Complete these words by adding the same 3 letters to each one.
E---T
M---T
S---
R---T
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 2 April puzzle.) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 7-June-2009 – Three Countries |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|05:31 pm] |
Here are the names of three countries, with the vowels removed. What are the three countries?
CMBD, CMRN, CND.
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 28 May puzzle.) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 31-May-2009 – Martians with IDs |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|08:32 pm] |
In a large crater on Mars, each Martian carries an identification card. Each Martian’s card is different and contains just one letter and one one-digit number, (and the one-digit number may be zero).
The Martian number system and alphabet is the same as the ones most commonly used in the US and the UK.
How many Martians can live in the crater, before they have to use duplicate identification cards?
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 24 February puzzle.) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 24-May-2009 – Meditate on 123 |
[May. 26th, 2009|06:41 pm] |
(No Sunday puzzles the last few weeks.)
I want you to meditate on the number 123. Now complete the following sequence;
116, 125, 206, 224, 305, ?
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 6 Feb puzzle.) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 3-May-2009 – Mark Twain again |
[May. 3rd, 2009|08:19 pm] |
The following is a jumbled quote from Mark Twain. Can you determine the correct order of the words that will set the quote straight?
“The laughter really weapon has one human that effective, and is race.”
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 5 April puzzle. |
|
|
| Flash Mobs and the T-Mobile advert. |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|12:33 am] |
A 'flash mob' is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. It was popularised in England with the 'Silent Rave” or Mobile Disco', where people turn up to public places and then dance to their iPods.
For example here is a YouTube video of a Liverpool Street Station silent disco ... except it's been put to music. (People at the station would just see the people dancing without hearing the music.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cYBVy-Zdew
or Tinyurl at http://tinyurl.com/cjtpal
In the US 'Improv Everywhere' does flash mob experiments. Here's one they did in Grand Central Station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxu
or Tinyurl at http://tinyurl.com/2tfgkp
Am I the only one who feels a bit sad that these events, done by people for no other reason than that it’s fun, were noticed by the advertising world and used in a commercial? The T-Mobile advert is getting a lot of praise from people for its originality;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM
or Tinyurl at http://tinyurl.com/8t82j6
but it took a lot of hard work and many professional dancers to produce what you see on TV;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFNM8f9WnI
or Tinyurl at http://tinyurl.com/bwjddx
Yes the advert is better, and more slickly produced. But I'd rather see the flash mobs done with ordinary people like myself. But I think I’m in a minority judging by how many people love the commercial. |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 26-April-2009 –Five Miles South, East, North |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|10:03 pm] |
A person is somewhere on the Earth. The person walks five miles south, turns at a right angle and walk give miles east, then turns at a right angle and walk five miles north.
They end up at the same place. Ignoring practicalities such as how large is their footprint etc. (i.e. assume they are standing at a point and walk in a mathematical line), where are they?
WARNING there is the ‘easy’ answer to this, and the ‘hard’ answer.
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of several sources ... I’ve seen this in the magazine New Scientist 26th November 2005, but also in a book of puzzles.) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle – 19-April-2009 – Country Anagram |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|11:11 pm] |
The following is an anagram which is the name of a country. What is it?
“ADAM CAR GAS”
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time, unless someone wants to put the answer in a reply.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 16 Jan puzzle) |
|
|
| Sunday Puzzle - Easter 12-April-2009 – Mark Twain |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|10:01 pm] |
The following is a jumbled quote from Mark Twain. Can you determine the correct order of the words that will set the quote straight?
“Please distort as much as you your first, and then you can get them facts.”
(I’ll post the answer in a few days time.)
(Puzzle courtesy of Clifford Pickover 2003 – their 17 Feb puzzle) |
|
|
| Squirrels are evil |
[Mar. 30th, 2009|11:04 pm] |
I've told you before in this blog that squirrels hate me and Solo, and are out to get us. They also hate other humans.
There's a woman in Northern Ireland called Oonagh Nutt. The squirrels hate her in particular, because of her name. They pretended to be friendly at first, then invaded her house and turned nasty.
Mrs Nutt said, "Up close they are quite frightening - they look like puppy dogs with big hands, they growl and bark at you, they're vicious things. They'll go for you."
You can read the full story here;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7963370.stm
or
http://tinyurl.com/d4p2cu |
|
|
| London 2012 Olympics |
[Feb. 6th, 2009|03:17 am] |
I occasionally post on the London 2012 Olympics. I'm unhappy because part of the cost will be paid by London residents via their local taxes.
I quote from recent news;
"In its annual report on the 2012 budget, the Government has admitted the projected bill for the Olympic stadium rose by £43m to £547m during 2008.
The price tag for all the venues went up by £97m (7.6%) to £1.36bn."
In the interest of fairness, I have to add the extra bit, where the government says;
"But savings elsewhere have offset these rises, leaving the overall increase to the £9.3bn budget at just £3m.
"This shows that we are on course to remain on budget despite the current economic downturn," said Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell."
Like all good politicians Jowell talks up a good storm, but there's no doubt costs have spiralled since the original bid. (Some minister suggested a short whiel ago that the UK wouldn't have bid for the Olympics if they'd known this credit crisis was going to occur.)
We will just have to wait to see how much it's all going to cost in the end. |
|
|
| The oldest map of the world. |
[Jan. 25th, 2009|10:30 pm] |
This clay tablet is the oldest known map of the world. It's Babylonian, from about 700-500 BC. It consists of cuneiform writing along the top, and the actual map consists of a region surrounded by a circular body of water called ‘salt-sea'. If you look just above the centre of the circle you can see a rectangular region, and that is the ancient city-state of Babylon, which was part of Mesopotamia.
( Click on this link to see the picture of the map behind the cut. ) |
|
|
| This |
[Jan. 18th, 2009|06:12 pm] |
I posted 'THIS' in LJ.
That is, I'm posted the reply 'this' as a response to someone who posted the single word 'this' in response to a reply by someone else in a LJ thread.
:)
This is actually the first time I've just responded to a LJ post and said 'this'. It's so brilliant. It's even quicker than writing IAWTC (I agree with that comment). It means a bit more, not only do I agree with the comment, but if I'd thought of it, I'd have written it exactly as it was written.
Eventaully there'll be a convention where you respond and just type 'T', short for 'this', which means you can reply to a lot more LJ comments.
We also need a convention where we can type 'N' for 'Not this', i.e. I do not agree with this comment and would say something else, except I'm too busy writing 'T' and 'N' to other comments.
Look at twitter! People are communicating in twitter now by typing in one line at a time.
Look at Facebook. I've finally worked out that the idea is to go to that box it shows you, which defaults to "NAME IS..." and type in something quickly ... so lots of people can see it and type in 1 sentence responses.
I can see all communication in the future consisting of poeple typing in 1 letter or symbol. That gives us a big list of possible things you can say quickly, the 26 letters and numbers 0 to 9.
(It would be only a matter of time before someone spoils it and starts using 2 letters to expand the possibilities ... leading to people typing outthings in English again ... or at least some new constructed language.)
After typing something like this in a LJ entry I decided I would save time by posting it in my own personal journal as well, rather than think of something new to say.
Cross-posting rules. |
|
|
| Is it art or is it crap – The Great EU Hoax |
[Jan. 15th, 2009|12:59 am] |
The Czech Republic currently holds the EU presidency, and they commissioned the artist David Cerny to arrange for an art exhibit called ‘Entropa’ to be placed outside the European Council of Ministers building in Brussels. They expected it to contain pieces from 27 artists representing the different EU nations. They paid him 373,000 euro (about half a million US dollars, or about £350,000.)
But David Czerny didn’t look for or pay any other artists. He kept the money and then he and his two friends made something themselves, using snap-out plastic parts. It’s a huge exhibit, with essentially a different ‘piece’ for each country.
However the actual objects he made to represent the countries have angered people.
( See why behind this cut. ) |
|
|
| London Olympics 2012 - Cost Saving ideas. |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|07:54 pm] |
Someone was talking about Nightingale Nobbs in the comic The Hornet.
As far as I remember I never read the Hornet, but I looked up the web and found this explanation;
http://www.victorhornetcomics.co.uk/nobbsreview.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/99kg3f
What a fascinating story!
It reminds me of the Chinese in the Olympics opening ceremony using a 9 year old girl who looked 'classically pretty' to mime while a brilliant singer sang in the background.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/08/13/beijing-olympics-china-star-singer-banned-from-ceremony-for-not-being-pretty-enough-115875-20695525/
or
http://tinyurl.com/9tnrzu
It shows that there's nothing new under the sun. Maybe they got the idea from the Hornet?
That article is fascinating. It mentions, I quote, "The fake was the second one uncovered at the incredible £20 million opening ceremony in Beijing. China has already confessed footage of their fireworks display was digitally enhanced for the worldwide television coverage in case some of the 29 blasts were blurred by smog."
Maybe that's the answer for London 2012? We can just use CGI to pretend we have a fabulous opening ceremony. (As I live in London and I'll be paying for a good deal of the Olympics, I'd be very happy with that cost-saving idea.)
The article also says, "And yesterday, they also admitted bussing in yellow tee-shirted volunteers to sit as cheering crowds at some of the least watched sports - even though it has been claimed the Games are a sell-out."
It's been mentioned in the news recently that fewer young people are doing Morris Dancing. So let's include that in the Olympics and pay for some spectators ... that will reverse the decline of the 'activity'.
In fact, maybe we could just use CGI for the whole Olympics, like a block-buster movie, which will not only save money as we won't have to build anything, but will let us ensure lots of medals for Team GB (and of course the Republic of Ireland.) |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
imluxionverdin's journal