14 March 2020

While not a millennial….

This perfectly captures my mood after unsuccessfully trying to explain to my own daughter, a colleague at office and two fellow CEOs that it is okay to travel in planes. Stop listening to news outlets. Read up everything CDC is publishing instead. Or better still, talk to your doctor. They spent a lot of money to understand these kind of things and explain it to you.

That said, Scott, your observation was on the money. The gentleman next to me (I am writing this from a plane) cleaned his entire seat with wipes (good for him) and then proceeded to take the almond packet that Delta gave (God knows where all it has been), proceeded to open it with his hands, put them in his hand and put them in his mouth. That is the one thing CDC is saying – please do not do… do not get your hand near your mouth if you can avoid it.

Grrrrr.!!!

Category: Humor | LEAVE A COMMENT
24 February 2020

Followup puzzle

This is a followup puzzle to the previous one to understand why the one-black-dot case is not possible. Some find the answer to be controversial. To me the logic is bulletproof though.

So, it is the same problem as before except that the lady skips the portion where she asks the three men to raise their hands if they see at least one white dot. Instead, after removing the blindfolds, she straightaway asks “What color dot do you have on your forehead”.

After quite some thinking, the smartest person came up with the correct answer.

What was the answer and how did he figure it out?

For completeness sake, I am restating the whole problem here…


Three smart men were trying to find out who is the smartest of them all. Or was at least most logical and quickest thinker. To resolve that, they went to a woman who had the reputation of being the smartest of them all. She devised a quick problem for them. She blindfolded them and painted a dot on each of their foreheads.
She then told them “I have painted a dot on each of your foreheads. The dots are either white or black in color. I am going to soon open your blindfolds. You will be able to see other’s dots but not your own. Then I am going to ask you to guess the color of your own dot”.
Saying so, she opened their blindfolds.
“Okay, now guess what color is on your forehead”.
The three men started pondering and soon one of them – who was indeed a little smarter than the others – spoke up.
“Correct”, said the lady.
Question: What was the answer and how did he figure it out?

23 February 2020

Sunday morning logic puzzle (a trifle easier than before)

Three smart men were trying to find out who is the smartest of them all. Or was at least most logical and quickest thinker. To resolve that, they went to a woman who had the reputation of being the smartest of them all. She devised a quick problem for them. She blindfolded them and painted a dot on each of their foreheads.

She then told them “I have painted a dot on each of your foreheads. The dots are either white or black in color. I am going to soon open your blindfolds. You will be able to see other’s dots but not your own. I am then going to ask you to raise your hand if you see a white dot (on either of the two friend’s foreheads). Then I am going to ask you to guess the color of your own dot”.

Saying so, she opened their blindfolds.

“You may raise your hand now if you see a white dot”

All three men raised their hands.

“Okay, now guess what color is on your forehead”.

The three men started pondering and soon one of them – who was indeed a little smarter than the others – said “I have a white dot on my forehead”.

“Correct”, said the lady.

Question: How did the man figure out what color he had?

22 February 2020

From the bartender’s corner: Devil’s Margarita

Picked the recipe up from Liquor magazine. First, it is a riff of your traditional margarita. Instead of tequila, you put mezcal. You put the orange liqueur, simple syrup and lime juice as you would normally do. Now, for a twist, float some red wine on the drink.

I was not sure what to expect – but it actually turned out fairly palatable. No salt on the rim though – the acidic red wine and salt are going to mess it up.

11 February 2020

Here is another puzzle

There are three archers – Hubert, Anamika and myself. Hubert is the world renowned, highly decorated Olympics champion from Belgium who is a “sure shot”. Meaning he never misses. Then there is Anamika – who is a amateur archer but has gotten her game to a point where she scores 2 out of 3 times. And then there is Rajib – yours truly – who barely knows which end of the arrow should point towards you. And I have an average starter’s chance of success – 1 in 3.

We find ourselves in a contest where we can only survive by killing the other two. (One successful shot with the arrow is enough to kill anybody). Also, we three are highly intelligent and know how to calculate probabilities of success. (With that level of intelligence, how we got ourselves into this situation is a good question but terrible for this puzzle).

The rules are the following:
Since I am the novice, I get the first shot.
Next, Anamika – being the second best shot goes. Of course, that assumes I did not aim at her and succeeded in which case Hubert goes next.
Once Hubert has had a chance (assuming he was still alive after I and Anamika had our shots), the cycle continues.
So it is me -> Anamika -> Hubert -> repeat till there is one person standing.

The question is: What should be my strategy as the first shot to maximize my chances of still living after the whole ordeal.