5 November 2013

Indian Mars venture

India did today successfully what only US, Russia and the EU has done (and China and Japan failed in the past). Launched successfully a mission to Mars.
Proud and jubilant leaders from India, in a rare moment of camaraderie, declared that when India puts its mind to something, it is an unstoppable force. In fact, emboldened by this success, they solemnly swore to conquer the next frontier – indoor plumbing ๐Ÿ™‚

4 November 2013

Divine Vine :-)

Natasha (15 years old) ย found out this afternoon that I have a Vine account. She had been berating me ever since…

A few minutes back one more of those war of words started. But this time it ended in a very different way.

….

Natasha: “You don’t understand Vine. Vine is not for you”

Me: “Says who?”

Natasha: “All kids countrywide says so”

At this point, 9 year old Nikita who had been intently watching us offered this…

Nikita: “Yeah, Daddy. Vine is for troubled teenagers countrywide” ๐Ÿ™‚

For the next few moments I could not decide whether to laugh my head off or separate the two girls from each others’ throats ๐Ÿ™‚

I was certainly saying “You go, girl!” to Niki mentally ๐Ÿ™‚

1 November 2013

Puzzle for this week

I am certainly a little wary of posting a puzzle today lest all my FB friends start wishing me Happy Birthday or something like that ๐Ÿ™‚

As always, send me messages in FB and not in the “Comments” section.

How can you get 5 by using only two 2s (and you can use any mathematical operators, symbols etc as many times as you want).

Can you come up with 2 different ways?

28 October 2013

OK prisoners

USA Today headline reports that “4 Oklahoma prisoners escaped from a ‘escape-proof’ prison through the shower vent”.
This is, no doubt, the after effect of the jail officials plea to the prisoners to come out “clean” ๐Ÿ™‚

24 October 2013

Puzzle time

You are shown two identical bowls in a room – one of them containing 25 white marbles and the other containing 25 black marbles. The marbles are identical to each other other than the aspect of color, of course.
A blindfold person will be brought in to the room and asked to choose any bowl randomly and pick any one marble randomly from that bowl. If it is turns out to be a white marble, you will get a million dollars. If it turns out to be black you get nothing.
However, before the blindfolded person is brought in, you are allowed to mix up all the marbles and place any number of white and any number of black marbles in each bowl. Needless to say, all marbles have to be in one or the other bowl.
How would you place the marbles (meaning how many of which color marbles in which bowl) to give you the maximum chance of winning the million dollars?

(Remember to send me FB message instead of posting it on the Comments section. I will acknowledge you in the comments section if you get it right)

19 October 2013

Good looking potato

Most of you who know me, also know very well that grocery shopping is clearly not one of my core competencies. I have rarely done it and I am totally clueless about the aisle layouts. Once in a blue moon, Sharmila will hand me a list of things to pick up. Typically, once in the store, I will look at the top of the list and then roam around the store looking for that item, listlessly ๐Ÿ™‚ Eventually, I will give up, call her up and then ask for instructions. She will remotely guide me to the aisle, I will find the item and then tell her “I have got it from here” before dropping the call.
Then I will see the next item on the list, again walk around the whole store completely confused where to find the item, call her back againโ€ฆ. and so on โ€ฆ till I have made as many calls as there are items on the list. It is the same story every single time.
So, these days, she tries to be very explicit in her instructions when she absolutely needs me to go to the grocery store.
This is the text message I got from her when I was out running an errand this morning.
The good news is, following her directions, I landed up in the potato section. Except there were lots and lots of potatoes. And I had no idea in God’s green earth when to deem a potato “good looking”. Frankly, they all looked rather unseemly to me ๐Ÿ™‚
As you must have guessed, a phone call ensuedโ€ฆ ๐Ÿ™‚ ๐Ÿ™‚

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10 October 2013

Puzzle – alligation?

While it is not exactly about mixing liquids, it involves pouring liquids alright.
You have three containers whose capacity are 12 gallons, 8 gallons and 5 gallons respectively. The 12 gallon container is filled with water and the other two are empty. You have nothing else. You have to divide the water into two parts of 6 gallons each. In other words, by a sequence of pouring from one container to the other, you have to eventually have 6 gallons in the 12 gallon container and another 6 gallons in the 8 gallon container.
How would you do it?