BrainBashers Daily Puzzle

At the local model boat club, four friends were talking about their boats.

There were a total of eight boats, two in each colour, red, green, blue and yellow. Each friend owned two boats. No friend had two boats of the same colour.

Alan didn't have a yellow boat. Brian didn't have a red boat, but did have a green one. One of the friends had a yellow boat and a blue boat and another friend had a green boat and a blue boat. Charles had a yellow boat. Darren had a blue boat, but didn't have a green one.

Can you work out which friend had which coloured boats?

[Copyright: Kevin Stone]

BrainBashers Daily Sudoku

Complete the grid such that every row, every column, and the nine 3x3 blocks contain the digits from 1 to 9.

[Copyright: Kevin Stone]

BrainBashers Daily Game

Factory Balls 2
   In the second instalment, drag and drop a ball over the tools to produce the required balls.
[Played on the BrainBashers Games website]

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 10, 2012 is:

ludic • \LOO-dik\  • adjective
: of, relating to, or characterized by play : playful

Examples:
The members of the acting troupe had become well-known for their ludic behavior, evidenced by the practical jokes they played on each other off-stage.

"Accompanied by his trademark mirror-written notes -- often unrelated to the images -- Leonardo sketches, scribbles and jots his way through the myriad questions that puzzle his ludic, mercurial mind." -- From a review of a museum exhibit by Rachel Spence in Financial Times, January 9, 2012

Did you know?
Here's a serious word, just for fun. That is to say, it means "fun," but it was created in all seriousness around 1940 by psychologists. They wanted a term to describe what children do, and they came up with "ludic activity." That may seem ludicrous -- why not just call it "playing"? -- but the word "ludic" caught on, and it's not all child's play anymore. It can refer to architecture that is playful, narrative that is humorous and even satirical, and literature that is light. "Ludic" is ultimately from the Latin noun "ludus," which refers to a whole range of fun things -- stage shows, games, sports, even jokes. The more familiar word "ludicrous" also traces back to the same source.

BrainBashers Daily Puzzle

I have a machine which has four sequential cog wheels in constant mesh.

The largest cog has 21 teeth and the others have 17, 12 and 10 respectively.

What is the fewest number of revolutions the largest cog must make so that all of the cogs are back in their starting position?

[Copyright: Kevin Stone]

BrainBashers Daily Sudoku

Complete the grid such that every row, every column, and the nine 3x3 blocks contain the digits from 1 to 9.

[Copyright: Kevin Stone]

BrainBashers Daily Game

Isoball
   Get the ball into the hole by building a suitable track.
[Played on the BrainBashers Games website]

On this day in 1996, after three hours, world chess champion Gary Kasparov loses the first game of a six-game match against Deep Blue, an IBM computer capable of evaluating 200 million moves per second.  Man was ultimately victorious over machine, however, as Kasparov bested Deep Blue in the match with three wins and two ties and took home the $400,000 prize. An estimated 6 million people worldwide followed the action on the Internet.

Kasparov had previously defeated Deep Thought, the prototype for Deep Blue developed by IBM researchers in 1989, but he and other chess grandmasters had, on occasion, lost to computers in games that lasted an hour or less. The February 1996 contest was significant in that it represented the first time a human and a computer had duked it out in a regulation, six-game match, in which each player had two hours to make 40 moves, two hours to finish the next 20 moves and then another 60 minutes to wrap up the game.

Kasparov, who was born in 1963 in Baku, Azerbaijan, became the Soviet Union's junior chess champion at age 13 and in 1985, at age 22, the youngest world champ ever when he beat legendary Soviet player Anatoly Karpov. Considered by many to be the greatest chess player in the history of the game, Kasparov was known for his swashbuckling style of play and his ability to switch tactics mid-game.

In 1997, a rematch took place between Kasparov and an enhanced Deep Blue. Kasparov won the first game, the computer the second, with the next three games a draw. On May 11, 1997, Deep Blue came out on top with a surprising sixth game win--and the $700,000 match prize.

In 2003, Kasparov battled another computer program, "Deep Junior." The match ended in a tie. Kasparov retired from professional chess in 2005.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

"The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it."

"Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president."

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 09, 2012 is:

adulation • \aj-uh-LAY-shun\  • noun
: excessive or slavish admiration or flattery

Examples:
The star was somewhat embarrassed by the adulation of his teenage fans.

"I think that I was somebody who was pretty immature emotionally, and when thrust into a situation that was very abnormal of fame and adulation, I wasn't really equipped to deal with it very well. And I think my life goals up to that point were just: get a record deal…." -- Musician Trent Reznor in a December 19, 2011 interview on National Public Radio

Did you know?
If "adulation" makes you think of a dog panting after its master, you're on the right etymological track; the word ultimately derives from the Latin verb "adulari," meaning "to fawn on" (a sense used specifically of the affectionate behavior of dogs) or "to flatter." "Adulation," which came to us from Latin by way of Old French, can be traced back as far as the 14th century in English. The verb "adulate," the noun "adulator," and the adjective "adulatory" later joined the language.

On this day in 1971, pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige becomes the first Negro League veteran to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame. In August of that year, Paige, a pitching legend known for his fastball, showmanship and the longevity of his playing career, which spanned five decades, was inducted. Joe DiMaggio once called Paige "the best and fastest pitcher I've ever faced."

Paige was born in Mobile, Alabama, most likely on July 7, 1906, although the exact date remains a mystery. He earned his nickname, Satchel, as a boy when he earned money carrying passengers' bags at train stations. Baseball was segregated when Paige started playing baseball professionally in the 1920s, so he spent most of his career pitching for Negro League teams around the United States. During the winter season, he pitched for teams in the Caribbean and Central and South America. As a barnstorming player who traveled thousands of miles each season and played for whichever team met his asking price, he pitched an estimated 2,500 games, had 300 shut-outs and 55 no-hitters. In one month in 1935, he reportedly pitched 29 consecutive games.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier and became the first African American to play in the Major Leagues when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. The following year, Paige also entered the majors, signing with the Cleveland Indians and becoming, at age 42, baseball's oldest rookie. He helped the Indians win the pennant that year and later played for the St. Louis Browns and Kansas City A's.

Paige retired from the majors in 1953, but returned in 1965 to pitch three innings for the Kansas City A's. He was 59 at the time, making him the oldest person ever to play in the Major Leagues. In addition to being famous for his talent and longevity, Paige was also well-known for his sense of humor and colorful observations on life, including: "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you" and "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

He died June 8, 1982, in Kansas City, Missouri.

BrainBashers Daily Puzzle

What letter comes next in this sequence:

M V E M J ==?==

BrainBashers Daily Sudoku

Complete the grid such that every row, every column, and the nine 3x3 blocks contain the digits from 1 to 9.

[Copyright: Kevin Stone]

BrainBashers Daily Game

Bad Octo
   Rescue Octo the Octopus's victims and teach him a lesson.
[Played on the BrainBashers Games website]

"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."

"He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes."