Curiosities | Blog de Albert L.G.

Let me take a bite...

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

With my werewolf version:
TikiWolf.

Pleased to meet you. ;)

SELECT * FROM random_thoughts ORDER BY date DESC

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The title of this post could be a pretty good “geek” definition of this blog...

So much “geek”, so much “geek”... but what the heck does “geek” actually mean?
Well, on Wikipedia you can find a definition of geek... and just when things weren’t confusing enough, along comes the word “nerd”.
Luckily, I’m supposed to be a bit like that anyway... you know, man. ¬_¬'

By the way, I’ve already put the Wacom Graphire4 Classic XL to use, with a sketch based on a photograph of my friends Ray and Stefa:

I didn’t quite do them justice, but you have to start somewhere... ;)

Geek math test

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

My results:

I sold my soul to the Math Gods.
I got 20/21 on the Math Geek test.
Take the test!

A quote:

“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.”

Oscar Levant

And if you want to see the solutions...

The solutions:

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8
0, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15
3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6
2, 3, 5, 7, 11
1, 2, 6, 24, 120, 720
1, 2, 5, 10, 17, 26
1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211
59, 154, 605, 1111, 2222
1, 4, 27, 256, 3125
125, 376, 188, 94, 47, 142
1, 2, 6, 20, 70, 252
1, 1, 3, 11, 45, 197, 903
1, 1, 5, 61, 1385, 50521
6, 28, 496, 8128, 33550336 ?
1, 5, 14, 30, 55, 91
1, 2, 5, 15, 52, 203
1, 2, 5, 14, 42, 132
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 (this one gave me special joy… LOST!)
14, 23, 28, 33, 42, 51
5, 9, 14, 27, 29, 54, 59, 60

Murphy’s laws

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

I’ve found 27, although it reminds me of something about a slice of toast that always lands butter-side down...:

When you need to open a door using your only free hand, the key will be in the opposite pocket. (Fant’s Law)

The only times a door closes by itself are when you’ve left the keys inside. (Law of the force of destiny)

When your hands are covered in grease, your nose will start to itch. (Lorenz’s law of mechanics)

It doesn’t matter how you open a box of medicine. The leaflet will always be in the way. (Aspirino’s principle)

Any dull knife will still be sharp enough to cut your finger. (Fausner’s first household rule)

Insurance covers everything—except what actually happens. (Miller’s Insurance Law)

When things seem to be going better, you’ve overlooked something. (Chisholm’s Second Corollary)

Whenever things seem easy, it’s because we’re not following all the instructions. (Donald Westlake)

If you stay calm while everyone else is losing their head, you clearly haven’t grasped the problem. (Emergencio’s Principle)

Problems are neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. (Law of the persistence of problems)

No matter what goes wrong, there’s always someone who already knew it would. (Evans and Bjorn’s Law)

You’ll reach the phone just in time to hear it hang up. (Bess’s Second Principle)

The phone will ring when you’re outside frantically looking for your door keys. (Bess’s First Principle)

Whenever you’re about to connect to the Internet, you’ll receive the call you’ve been waiting for all day. (Dialer Principle)

If you’ve been waiting all day for a call, it will ring while you’re in the shower. (First Principle of Invocation)

If there are only two TV programs worth watching, they’ll be on at the same time. (Jones’s Television Law)

Stealing ideas from one person is plagiarism; stealing them from many is research. (Felson’s Law)

Any manufacturing entity is the last to use its own product. (Meissiner’s Law)

The final cost is always higher than the estimate: exactly 3.14 times the budgeted amount—hence the importance of the number PI. (Pi’s Law)

The one who snores is the one who falls asleep first. (Bedmate rule)

Those who live closest arrive last. (Law of arrival)

If you try to put on your pajamas without turning on the light so you don’t fully wake up, the chances of putting them on correctly are practically zero. (Gusiluz’s Law)

The probability of getting dirty while eating is directly proportional to how much you need to stay clean. (Soup’s gastronomic law)

Wind speed increases in direct proportion to the price of the hairstyle. (Reynold’s meteorological law, also known as Llongueras’ Law)

The chances of resting on a weekend are inversely proportional to the accumulated fatigue of the previous five days. (Law of repressed rest)

No matter how terrible or rare your illness was, there will always be someone who suffered one worse and rarer. (Absolute hypochondriac principle)

When, after years of keeping something without using it, you decide to throw it away, it won’t be more than a week before you need it. (Law of the need for more space)

28, a perfect number

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Today I turn 28... and I’ve learned that it’s one of the 39 known perfect numbers.
What is a perfect number? One whose proper divisors (excluding itself) add up to the number itself.
Like this: 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28.

By the way, many thanks, Javi (for the congratulations and for the curious and interesting bit of information). ;)

Your file extension

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0100

If you were a file, what extension would you have? Go ahead and answer...:

File Extension Quiz

This would be mine:

¬_¬'

Your killer alter ego...

Sun, 03 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Do you want to know who your villainous “other self” is? Give it a try...:

Villain Quiz

This is mine:

As long as I turned “evil”... and became a movie actor. ¬_¬'

Viral marketing doesn’t work

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Tell everyone.

Finally, it's Friday...

Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Animated animations, redundancy intended:

Perfect to receive by email on a Friday afternoon. ;)

Logic puzzles

Mon, 31 May 2004 00:00:00 +0100

1.- Continue the sequence:

1 11 21 1211 111221 312211 ...

2.- How many sheep did each one have?
Two shepherds:
- Why don’t you give me one of your sheep? Then we’ll both have the same number.
- Better give me one of yours… that way I’ll have twice as many sheep as you.

I’ll add more puzzles soon. :)

3.- What color is the bear?
A bear walks 10 km south, 10 km east and 10 km north, returning to the point where it started.

4.- How should he do it?
A shepherd has to take a wolf, a goat and a lettuce across a river. He has a boat that can only carry him and one of the other three items. If the wolf is left alone with the goat, it eats it. If the goat is left alone with the lettuce, it eats it…

5.- How did he figure out which switch turns on the light by walking down the hallway only once?
A man stands at the beginning of a long hallway with three switches. At the end there is a room with the door closed. One of the switches turns on the light in that room, which is initially off…
Hint: the man has a flashlight. (hehe)

6.- How can he save himself?
A prisoner is locked in a cell with two doors: one leads to death and the other to freedom. Each door is guarded by a watchman. The prisoner knows that one always tells the truth and the other always lies. To choose the door he may only ask one question to one guard…

7.- Where is the missing peseta?
Three friends with financial difficulties share a coffee that costs 30 pesetas, so each pays 10. When they go to pay, they ask for a discount and the owner gives them 5 pesetas back, giving one peseta to each and keeping two in a common fund. Later they do the math and say: each of us paid 9 pesetas, so we spent 9x3=27 pesetas, and with the two in the fund that makes 29…

8.- What does he say so they don’t kill him?
A hiker is captured by cannibals and they tell him:
- If you tell a lie we will kill you slowly, and if you tell the truth we will kill you quickly.

9.- How is this possible?
Three brothers divide their father’s inheritance, consisting of 35 horses. In his will the father stated that the eldest should get half, the middle one a third and the youngest a ninth. Since the divisions were not exact, they consulted an old mathematician, who proposed the following:
- Since 35 horses cannot be divided exactly by half, a third or a ninth, I will give you mine. Now you have 36 horses. The eldest gets 18, the middle one 12 and the youngest 4. That adds up to 34 horses, so two are left: I take back mine and keep the other one as payment for solving your problem.

10.- Math magic
Write the number 12345679 on a piece of paper (note that the 8 is missing). Ask a friend to give you a digit from 1 to 9, multiply it mentally by 9, write the result under the number 12345679 and ask your friend to multiply the two numbers. They will be amazed by the result.

Binary code

Sun, 30 May 2004 00:00:00 +0100

An interesting little tool...

Binary - It's digitalicious!

Try it by entering the following text in the "binary" box and clicking the "decode" button below:

01000001011011000110001001100101011100100111 01000010000001001100001011100100011100101110

Hi, I’m a geek

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:00:00 +0100

That’s the first thing you’d think I was telling you if you saw this on the door of my house:

Although, to think that, you’d have to be one too. :P

You can find this kind of “stuff” (or worse) at:

Rubik’s Cube

Sat, 22 May 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Magic? Not anymore... The Rubik’s Cube on Wikipedia .

By the way, I’d like to take this opportunity to recommend Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , as one of those “must-have resources” on the Web of Webs.

South Park Caricatures

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0100

I’ve just created my own South Park character:

You can do the same using Create-A-Character from South Park Studio.
I found it while reading minid.net.

Paper Airplanes

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Do you like flying? Don’t miss this… avioncitosdepapel.com. ;)