Saturday, March 29, 2014

Really really ridiculously cute

Apologies to Zoolander for the title. But if you're feeling down about the various things to feel down about in the world, then  Cuteoverload is really cute and cheer uppy.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Just a cool link today.

Ever wonder how many people are in space? At time of writing 3
http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

Monday, March 24, 2014

A puzzle of primes

This is a fairly old one I first saw in a high school, at one of the Stellenbosch university olympiad camps.  Enjoy.

It's possible to find a string of 1000 consecutive integers with no primes. For example
1001!+2,1001!+3,...,1001!+1001. Does there exist a string of consecutive integers with exactly 5 primes?

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Another powers of two post

I've been negelectign this blog of late.
To keep the posts flowing here is one of the internets great time sinkers.



Monday, March 3, 2014

Odin takes quizzo way too seriously

Recently I've  reread parts of Tales of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green. Who does an excellent job of describing various mythologies (there is a series).  Anyway one of the myths described is of Odin and the wise giant Valfthrudnir having a "quiz to the death".  As described in the link they agree to ask each other questions until someone gets one wrong and then the winner cuts off the loser's head and keeps it.

I've got a question about this. First up how do they decide weather a particular question is right assuming they disagree? In this tale they don't but what exactly stops a conversation like this happening?

Valf: Which Stallion draws the chariot of the moon?
Odin: It's called "Milky".
Valf: No it's called "Snowy" I get your head!!
Odin: No I'm pretty sure it's "Milky" so I get your head.
Valf: SNOWY!!!!!!
Odin: MILKY!!!!!!!!!

How do they go about judging this?