thnik again!

Last week I visited a fair in Ban Chang. One stall seemed to be more popular than the others. The Bingo stall. This is old news. The story below is from 1929:

A few miles from Jacksonville, Lowe came around a bend in the road and was greeted by the bright lights of a country carnival. he was ahead of schedule, so he parked his car and got out. All of the carnival booths were closed except one, which was packed with people. Lowe stood on tiptoes and peered over the shoulders of the participants. The action centered on a horseshoe shaped table covered with numbered cards and beans. The game being played was a variation of Lotto called Beano. The pitchman, or caller, pulled small numbered wooden disks from an old cigar box and, at the same time, called the number aloud. The players responded by eagerly checking their card to see if they had the number called; if so, they would place a bean on the number. This sequence continued until some someone filled a line of numbers on their card – either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. This feat was marked by the shout of “Beano!” The winner received a small Kewpie doll.

Ed Lowe tried to play Beano that night, but, he recalls, “I couldn’t get a seat. But while I was waiting around, I noticed that the players were practically addicted to the game. The picthman wanted to close up, but every time he said, “This is the last game’, nobody moved. When he finally closed at 3:00 a.m. he had to chase them out. – History of Bingo

Why is Bingo so popular? That is today’s simple question. Simple to ask, but difficult to answer. At least I do not have a clue. To me Bingo is not more than a lottery where the winning number is revealed in a long winded way.

Why people who haven’t committed any punishable offense listen to Country and Western music is absolutely beyond me. – John Cleese

The system used in the US — and many other places, including the UK — is known as plurality voting (PV). PV is based on the “one person, one vote” principle: every citizen casts only one vote for his or her preferred candidate, and the person with most votes wins. 

…

In this article I make the case for an alternative to PV in multi-candidate elections called approval voting (AV). With AV, voters can vote for, or approve of, as many candidates as they like. Each candidate receives one vote for every voter he or she was approved by, and the candidate with most votes wins.

Read the article here.

Use left and right arrow keys to move the gun left and right.

You reduce a number by shooting it with its prime factors. Each time a prime factor hits a number, the number is divided by that factor. If the number is a prime number you can shoot it with a special “P” (“P” for “prime”) missile which reduces it directly to 1.

To fire a 2, 3, 5 or 7, just type the corresponding key on the keyboard. To fire 11, 13, 17 or 19, type the first letter of the number (in lower case), i.e. “e” for 11, “t” for 13, “s” for 17 and “n” for 19. Type “p” (lower case) to fire the “P” missile. In all cases a number is “dead” when it is reduced to 1.

If a number hits you, then you’re dead.

- How is your work in the laboratory going?
- It is a real mess, I am afraid!
- How come?
- Today, I lost five marbles into the conical funnel I was using.
- Were they big marbles?
- The smallest one had a radius of 8mm while the biggest had a radius of 18mm.
- I see.
- Each marble touched the funnel walls and the marble below and above.
- So the smallest marble was at the bottom and the biggest at the top?
- Exactly.
- How big was the marble in the middle?
- I have no idea!

Problem source: Nick’s Mathematical Puzzles.

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.  - John von Neumann

Mr. R made a clock that was started at 6.00AM. Soon it was discovered that Mr. R had mixed the hour hand with the minute hand so the first moved twelve times as fast as the second instead of the other way around. Mr. R remained calm, ‘it will soon show the right time again,’ he said.

How soon?

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies. - Woody Allen

- Is it true what I heard?
- What did you hear?
- That you just bought two dogs.
- Yes, that is correct.
- How old are they?
- Together or one by one?
- I’ll settle for the sum of their ages.
- They have both lived a four digit number of days.
- You mean more than 999 days and less than 10000?
- That is another way of putting it.
- And?
- Their average age equals the first dog’s age followed by the decimal point and the second dog’s age.
- Really?! That is amazing!
- They weren’t cheap.

Problem source: Columbus Stae University, Problem of the Week.

A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you. - Bert Leston Taylor