Luck (and how to find it)

Good Morrow all ye chaps and chapesses:
With Halloween falling on Friday the 31st (read Friday the 13th), it is important to remember how to steer clear of bad luck, and create enough good luck to survive the day. As a side note, I will be backing cookies while typing this *pulls out ingredients. Salt shaker falls on the floor*. First of all, lets go over all the good luck charms we can come by in an average household. These charms will help to ward away the bad luck *begins adding ingredients to the bowl. drops an egg by accident. Black cat begins sampling the egg*. Here are a few things you may have around your house. Mirrors are good luck, they bring out your charm, and beauty. Try breaking an older mirror. Having lots of mirror shards increases your good luck! *finishes adding ingredients, and begins to mix the bowl. A dishcloth falls on the floor, meanwhile, the black cat begins taking a nap on the table*. As I was saying, other good luck charms can include umbrella decorations in  your home. The larger the umbrella, the better. Also, having birds as pets can bring good luck. I recommend Ravens. They make great company, and always have a great story to tell. *Cookie dough is done, I begin "lightly" sampling the dough. A picture frame falls off the wall* Ahem! 2 Dollar bills can be good luck, as well as a ladder near your door. I know, people have the silliest superstitions. Oh well, *places ladder near the door*. It can't hurt, right? Finally, opals are known to bring good luck to people, especially if it is not your birthstone. Get opals, and hang them up all over the place. I don't have any opals myself, so I just hang rocks from the ceiling. *what's left of the cookie dough gets placed in the oven. The black cat wakes up and begins licking the bowl*. Well, that's all for now. Good luck surviving Friday the 31st (read Friday the 13th).


On an unrelated note, things are going quite well, if rather busy. I have 4 long days this week to stay caught up with work, and life in general. I am enjoying hanging out with friends and family these past few weeks, and very excited about the weather and the turning of the seasons! I may be doing a murder mystery night this weekend, and would love to do a second one later in November if anyone is interested. :) What else? Christmas is looming closer, as is Thanksgiving and I'm excited to see everyone. Finally, I wish I had a pet, but our apt. is a little strict on the matter. Maybe a betafish? Well, the cat would probably eat it. :P


That's all for now,
*Woof!*


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ZOMBIES!!! - aaaahhhhhhhh!!

Good Afternoon,
In the light of Halloween coming on a Friday this year, something extra creepy is bound to happen! Well...what if the zombies came? Are you prepared? Here is a quick overview on how to survive the zombie apocalypse:

There are 2 main methods to gearing up for a zombie apocalypse: Planned, and Un-prepared.

Planned:

Store supplies for 90 days. While supplies will eventually run out anyway, 3 months is enough to get started, or travel a considerable distance if you need. You will need two main categories of equipment: food and supplies.

Food should be packable:

…able to keep for long periods of time, and contain plenty of protein and nutrients. You will also need jugs of water. Anything, including tap water may be the source of the infection. Canned goods, cliff bars, MRE’s, and vacuum sealed goods all make for great long term provisions. Don’t forget to grab any fresh food from your cupboards as you leave however. Who knows the next time you may get a fresh piece of fruit.

Supplies should include all the necessities:

Be sure to include Medications (as much as possible, zombies tend to target hospitals, as the prey there is easier to catch), Flashlights, floodlights, any kind of light really, batteries, matches, cooking set lots of rope (you can never have too much rope), a few small knives and tools for basic repairs and construction. You will obviously want defensive weapons, such as knives, guns, etc. However, these may be obtained on the run or as you go. Zombies will rarely haunt gun shops (unless they are much cleverer than we give them credit for). You will probably want to grab your entire wardrobe, as well as boots, sunglasses, first aid kit and book, and of course, giant garbage bags, chicken wire, and duct tape.

…And a few pleasantries:

Surviving the zombie apocalypse will be a terrible experience, so you may as well have some pleasantries if at all possible. Look at Walle the robot. He collected spoons and forks. You’re not packing for a lightweight trip, you may be on the move for months or even years. Bring your cellphone, laptop, books, games, remote control car (hey, these can be very useful), pet drone, teddy bear, whatever helps you get through those long days on watch.

Communicate:

Communications devices are paramount. Sure, you may be the only one on earth, but that’s very unlikely. Set up any mobile accounts you can on your laptop (sidenote, you will want to get a satellite card for your laptop) including facebook, twitter, skype, anything. Zombies hate facebook. Get a pair of shortwave radios, and keep a large supply of batteries. When all else fails, use sharpies to write messages about where you are going, how long you may be gone, etc. Zombies can’t read, at least not yet…

Some final words on packing:

Bring as much medicine supplies as you can get your hands on. Did is say this already? Well, it’s important. Bring band-aids, bleach, alcohol, ibuprofen, aspirin, a gallon of hand sanitizer, superglue, needles, etc. Also, bring your shower kit. Pack about 3 times your usual supply of everything from toothpaste to toilet paper, to shampoo.

A word on everything else:

First, transportation. You need to be mobile. Make sure you have access to a couple of vehicles, at least one must be all-terrain, and preferably suitable for diesel fuel. Diesel is not as efficient, but it tends to last longer, and you can always siphon it from semi trucks. It may not be a bad idea to have a bicycle as well. They are slower than cars, but you can outrun the average zombie on a bike. Get a good mountain bike designed to handle rough terrain. A note on weapons: you can have all the weapons in the world, but they won’t help much unless you’re at least an average shot. Go to a firing range, get some practice in before the world falls apart. You should learn to hunt as well. If at all possible, find a generator, or collect car batteries and begin daisy-chaining them.

Un-Prepared:

Suppose you are completely un-prepared for a world-wide apocalypse. Zombies are invading and you need to leave now. What do you do? First of all, avoid the freeway. That’s about the dumbest thing you can do. The freeway will be crowded, and a mass of zombies will be there already. You need to find a defensible position. Secondly, you need supplies for the short term. Begin with yourself. Bundle up in layers, and grab a pair of boots, a flashlight, and some protein for the road. Get a weapon, the longer the range the better. You also want any set of maps you can get your hands on, geographical or other. Depending on what is happening outside, you must make a decision whether to hide out, or immediately evacuate. If you choose to hide out, pick a basement, or underground shelter. This serves to protect you from the elements, or any airborne illness. Immediately find a safe water source, such as water jugs or bottles. Store as much as you can. At some point however, you will probably need to evacuate, and search for a longer term hideout. This may be in town, if there are not many zombies in your town, or it may be a long ways away, in the forest or such. Either way, you want an escape plan. Plan carefully, and stockpile on anything you can get that is listed in the Planned section above. Raid grocery stores, hardware stores, even other houses that are abandoned. Finally, find other survivors if possible. Staying alive is much easier with a group.

Happy Halloween!

*Most information has been adapted from wikihow.com*

Friday!

It's Friday! Even though I've been able to sleep and lay around all week, who can't be excited about Fridays? The bunnies were too busy this week to carve pumpkins, so they will be going all out tonight with their implements of destruction. I'll try to stay out of the way! :) My masters have been talking about some delicious cold weather meals, I think they will be making chili tonight. I'll ask them nicely if I can lick the bowl. On Wednesday, they brought out lots of stretchy cobwebs to hang around the house in honor of Halloween. I don't mind their enthusiasm, but it got in my fur! *scratches*.  My walks have been cut short due to the rain, but it's a fair tradeoff. It's nice to lay inside, listening to the rain.

For your math lesson today, let us consider a mathematician by the name of Fibonacci. Fibonacci developed a system of exponential counting when related to reproductive growth, namely rabbits. *Rabbits enter room to peer at screen while I type*. Fibonacci supposed that a newly-born pair of rabbits, one male and one female, are put into a field. Assume rabbits mate once a month, and are old enough to mate after one month. Fibonacci also supposed the rabbits never die, and each litter consists of a pair of rabbits (one male and one female). How many pairs of Wabbits will there be after 1 month? 3 months? 9 months?

At the end of the 1st month, they mate, but there is still only 1 pair.
At the end of the 2nd month, there will be 2 pair.
At the end of the 3rd month, the original pair have a second litter, for a total of 3 pairs.
At the end of the 4rth month, the original pair have a third litter, and the pair born two months ago produces their first pair, making 5 pairs.

This formula can continue as follows:
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144...

As you can see, the field quickly fills up with rabbits!! *Rabbits are still watching me type, this is kind of eerie* This sequence is often found in nature, in the same manner as the rabbits. Take a tree for example. most trees have a single trunk, which extends into branches. Although nature has its quirks, a pure Fibonacci tree would look like the following:

It can be lots of fun to look around and see math everywhere. Many leaves have a Fibonacci number of petals. An oak leave may have 3, or 5 petals, and most field daisies have about 34 petals (important to remember when playing the "He/She loves me, He/She loves me not" game).

Anywho, hope you enjoyed the lesson! I wanted to talk about sharks, and the possibly extinct Megalodon shark, but the wabbits came in and I didn't want to scare them. Happy Friday everyone!

Woof!

Early Morning

*Yawn* Why the silly bunnies wanted to stay up all night to play SC2 is beyond me. They found a new map called StarCraft Universe. It was fun to watch, but for a sheepdog like me the flashing screen was a bit much. They loved it though, and plan to come back to play some more in the following few days. However, I talked them into some Halloween decorating, pumpkin carving, and fondue tonight! *sits up and wags tail* Both of my pets will be home, so they should be able to keep the bunnies in check. We will be carving 3d pumpkin faces, which will be rather difficult (especially with paws!). Pumpkin carving expert Ray Villafane carves amazing 3d pumpkins, and we will use some of his videos as a guide.


What else? The leaves are falling a lot faster with the rain to help, and soon all the trees will be bare. My brain is feeling a bit fuzzy and still sleepy, so for the math, here is a fun illustration:

Enjoy!

Woof woof!

Fall Post II

Sorry, it's still too soon to post an answer to the previous puzzle :P I still haven't solved it yet. It's a rather tough puzzle, and I'm told it is possible (although I don't know how) to solve the da/ja yes/no piece with a single question. So far, I haven't figured it out yet.

In other news, If your a dog like me, (woof!) then you can try a new sleeping schedule, which allows you to get a full nights sleep, and still stay up to play/party on the weekends. Its called a 28 hour day:

I would recommend humans not try this unless they are willing to living with "jet lag" for a while. :P Halloween is coming soon! I would like to throw together a pumpkin carving party. The rabbits and I have been researching 3d pumpkin carving, and if you haven't heard of Ray Villafane yet, you should look up some of his work on youtube, it's incredible! Of course it is hard to carve pumpkins with paws, but somehow I think I'll manage.

Enjoy the rain everyone!

**Picture from www.xkcd.com

Fall (is Here)

So....my master just came home from the dentist the other day (Tuesday I think). He survived 2 fillings and a sealant. I think he needs to chew more bones and couch pillows like I do, they are incredibly healthy for your teeth (excepting maybe the couch pillows). However, all went fairly well, until he decided to look up what fillings are made of. And no, the answer is not sugar and spice :P. So, he fretted about that for a day or so, and now seems fine. At least he is eating sugar again. Now if only he will remember to begin flossing, he may be set. *


*On a sidenote, not completely unrelated to dentists, Amalgam is a silvery substance used in fillings, and gives the owner that undeniable pleasure of bragging that he has a lump of silver with him everywhere he goes.*


The weather has finally cooled to the point I can take naps with the windows open and not worry about roasting, the bunnies have calmed down quite a bit, and are usually content to play chess and limit their all-night parchisi clubs to once a week. :) I get to go to the beach soon! It'll be a nice break from the bunnies, and I may even get to play in the surf!


Finally, I have a new puzzle for you to work on (a bit harder than Sudoku, woof woof).


"Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language in which the words for 'yes' and 'no' are 'da' and 'ja', in some order. You do not know which word means which."










Ready, set go! Good Luck!

Dragons - revisited

Good Morning again,
*ahem* sorry for the delay, but below is the best written version of the solution I could find. I had to read it a couple of times, but it should lay out the answer to this puzzle. Woof!

How does one simplify this puzzle? By making it the 1 Green-Eyed Dragon Puzzle. If you tell a single green-eyed dragon that "at least one of you" has green eyes, that dragon would know instantly and unambiguously that she has green eyes. At midnight she would turn into a sparrow. (poor dragon!)

Now let's imagine 2 green-eyed dragons staring at one another, after being informed by you that at least one of them has green eyes. Each would look upon the other and, seeing a set of green eyes, think the following: "Do I have green eyes? I don't know. But if I do not, then this other dragon, upon seeing my non-green eyes, will know instantly and unambiguously that he is the one with green eyes, and at midnight will turn into a sparrow." Each dragon sits and waits to see what the other does. When, at midnight, neither dragon transforms into a sparrow, each one knows instantly and unambiguously that the other dragon did not leave because it, too, saw a dragon with green eyes. And so, on the second night, each transforms into a sparrow at midnight.

Let's expand the problem to 3 green-eyed dragons. Following your announcement, each dragon thinks to itself that if it does not have green eyes, then the other two dragons will determine their eye color by the reasoning laid out in the 2 green-eyed dragon scenario presented above. In this case, all three dragons wait for the other two dragons to transform into sparrows on the second midnight. When this does not happen, each of the three dragons concludes instantly and unambiguously that it has green eyes. On the third midnight, all three transform into sparrows.

Through the process of induction, we conclude that any number of green-eyed dragons, N, will all turn into sparrows on the Nth midnight following your seemingly inconsequential observation.

I hope this helps!

Here there be Dragons

Good Morrow to ye all: <Woof!>
I shall now place before you a puzzle involving the huggable, loveable dragons, and an island I found while on a canoe ride the other day.


As I paddled (rather slowly, as dogs have trouble with the paddles), along, I saw an island in the distance. Hovering over the island were several strange winged beasts. As I  floated closer, I realized they were all dragons, each about the size of a kangaroo, and each with bright green eyes. Once I landed on the island, I was greeted enthusiastically by the entire community. For they had never seen a sheepdog before, and were fascinated by my fur. We talked for a while, and they let me stay. During my stay, I counted a total of 100 of the beasts.

They seem to be quite normal, as far as dragons go, but then I found out something rather odd. They have a rule on the island which states that if a dragon ever finds out that he/she has green eyes, then at precisely midnight on the day of this discovery, he/she must relinquish all dragon powers and transform into a long-tailed sparrow. However, I found no mirrors on the island, and they never talk about eye color, so the dragons have been living in blissful ignorance throughout the ages.

I stayed with them for quite some time, pondering this strange rule of theirs, but not wanting to be the cause of any trouble, never talked with them about it. Upon my departure, I made a statement to the dragons: I tell them all that at least one of them has green eyes.

Then I leave their island, never to return. My question to you dear readers, is this: Assuming that the dragons are (of course) infallibly logical, what happens? If something interesting does happen, what exactly is the new information that you gave the dragons?

This is a logic puzzle, pure and simple, and should keep your mind occupied for a while. :)

I will post a second one in a few days with the answer.