The nine squares inside the main red grid should be filled with the digits 1 through 9. Each digit should appear only once in the mail grid. One of these numbers (the 2) is already provided for [...]]]> Just because it’s a short Holiday week, doesn’t mean you can let your brain off too easy.

The nine squares inside the main red grid should be filled with the digits 1 through 9. Each digit should appear only once in the mail grid. One of these numbers (the 2) is already provided for you. Place the other digits in the correct spots so that the mathematical equations work both across and down. IMPORTANT: Remember algebraic rules when solving the problems… multiplication and division should be performed first, then addition and subtraction. Good luck!

You can take the easy way out confirm your answer here.

Bored, five of the [...]]]> The last few Mental Floss puzzles I’ve put up have been the number squares. They haven’t been particularly challenging. Luckily, Mental Floss put up a logic game today. Not that it’s particularly difficult either, but at least it’s something different and will hopefully get your brain going on a Monday.

Bored, five of the male patrons at Cheers – Cliff, Frasier, Norm, Paul, and Phil – embarked on a one-minute pretzel-eating contest. During the event, each patron ate at least one pretzel, but no two participants consumed the same number of pretzels. Given this information, and the clues that follow, try to determine (a) who won the contest and (b) how many pretzels each participant ate. Good luck:

1. Frasier ate exactly half as many pretzels as the winner.
2. Paul and Cliff were neck-and-neck at the very end, and combined to eat nine pretzels total.
3. Only one patron ate exactly as many pretzels as there are letters in his name.
4. Phil ate exactly one-quarter of all the pretzels eaten.

You can check your answer, or admit defeat, by click here.

Your brain may need a post-Thanksgiving jump start, so here’s a new Brain Game Math Square to get you going for the week.

The nine squares [...]]]> Sorry Sweisen, another week, another easy math square. Send your complaints to Mental Floss. Hopefully it’ll help you get your brain out of the tryptophan-induced haze a little.

Your brain may need a post-Thanksgiving jump start, so here’s a new Brain Game Math Square to get you going for the week.

The nine squares inside the main red grid should be filled with the digits 1 through 9. Each digit should appear only once in the mail grid. One of these numbers (the 2) is already provided for you. Place the other digits in the correct spots so that the mathematical equations work both across and down. Remember your algebraic rules when solving the problems… multiplication and division should be solved first, then addition and subtraction. Good luck!

You can check your answer against the solution here.

1) You can set up your regular voicemail through Google [...]]]> The other day, I shared with you Google’s new music search function. In an never-ending effort to improve the quality of your life, I bring you two more ways Google can make your life better. The first is tangible. The second is just interesting/thought-provoking.

1) You can set up your regular voicemail through Google Voice:

It sounds boring, but it’s actually pretty cool. You can basically have calls that you miss on your cell phone forwarded to your Google Voice voicemail. There, you can customize endless settings, including having specific greeting messages for specific callers (one for when your boss calls, one for when your friends call, etc.), you can save your voicemails forever, search them, email them, Google Voice will transcribe the voicemails and email them to you, send you texts, and if you ever switch numbers or carriers, all the voicemails stay with you.

I’ve done it. It works really well. So, next time you call me and try to leave a voicemail, I may have a personal greeting just for you…if you’re lucky.

You can read more about it, and how to set it up through this NY Times article: Google Voice ‘Lite’ — No New Number Required

2) Google provides a sneak peak into our collective brain:

Some of you may have it turned off, but when you normally start to type something into the Google search box, Google starts to return suggestions of what you might be looking for before you’re even done typing. That’s because Google is way smarter than you, and it also has data from millions of other searches to compare against.

Google doesn’t reveal its search algorithms, but the company’s engineers confirm that what we’re looking at in [Google Suggest] is, essentially, a list of the most popular queries that start with a given prefix. (It’s unclear what time period the suggestions are culled during, but a spokesman says they’re generated from “recent [search] activity.”) A suggestion-enabled search is like an instant popularity contest. Just type in a couple of letters, and you’ve got access to oodles of data on what your fellow Web surfers are hunting for.

Slate has an interesting piece in which they go through and compare ‘intelligent’ searches vs. ‘unintelligent’ searches. It’s humorous and also quite revealing about how different people tend to use Google to reach different ends. There are numerous different comparisons that you can check out, but here’s just one to whet your appetite:

The ‘unintelligent’ (aka Philly) search. Luckily, I’ve never even considered searching for something with using
2 as to.



The ‘intelligent’ search. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve ever started a search with ‘how might one’ either…



Pretty interesting differences. You can read many more of them on Slate: Awkward Suggestions, or if you need to waste three minutes of your day, you can just try some out for yourself here.



Although, I must admit, sometimes Google doesn’t know what it’s doing…

Last Monday, I posted a Math Square puzzle from Mental Floss. This Monday, I do the same:

The nine squares that make up the main grid should [...]]]> I know everyone probably had a long weekend of Halloween fun. I know I did. But now everyone needs to get their brains back into thinking mode.

Last Monday, I posted a Math Square puzzle from Mental Floss. This Monday, I do the same:

The nine squares that make up the main grid should be filled with the digits 1 through 9. Each digit should appear only once in the mail grid. Two numbers (5 and 7) are already provided for you. Place the other digits in the correct spots so that the mathematical equations work both across and down. (Remember your algebraic rules when solving the problems… multiplication and division should be solved first, then addition and subtraction.) Good luck:

When you’re done and/or give up, you can check yourself against the solution here.

This one took me about the same amount of time (~1 min) as the last one.

The nine squares that make up the main grid should be filled with the digits 1 through 9. Two [...]]]> It’s been a while since I’ve thrown a Mental Floss Brain Game up here. Monday morning seems like a good time for one. It’ll help jump start your brain after a nice weekend of football:

The nine squares that make up the main grid should be filled with the digits 1 through 9. Two of these (2 and 7) are already provided for you. Place the other digits in the correct spots so that the mathematical equations work both across and down. (Remember your algebraic rules when solving the problems… multiplication and division should be solved first, then addition and subtraction.) Good luck!

For the sake of generating interest in the puzzle, I timed myself. It took me 56 seconds to figure it out, but there was definitely room for improvement. Let’s see if you can do better.

When you’re done, or you give up, you can check out the solution here.

Today’s Brain Game is a tad more difficult. It requires not only brain power but a healthy dose of European geography bee skills as well. I haven’t had my coffee yet this morning, so it took me a while [...]]]> The last Mental Floss logic puzzle was pretty easy. Here’s the question. Here’s the solution.

Today’s Brain Game is a tad more difficult. It requires not only brain power but a healthy dose of European geography bee skills as well. I haven’t had my coffee yet this morning, so it took me a while to get 4 out of 5.

By correctly unscrambling each of the following five phrases, you can find the names of five European nations and their capital cities:

1. BRUTAL SPOOLING
2. NEGATE CHEERS
3. SUBMERSIBLE LUGS
4. BLINTZ WANDERERS
5. ROYAL SWOON

Good luck.

The first batter hit a single; the second batter was called out on strikes; the third batter hit a triple (scoring one run); [...]]]> The baseball brain teaser from a few days ago was fairly involved. Wernick, inspired by his trip to a boring sport’s Hall of Fame, managed to email me the answer first:

The first batter hit a single;
the second batter was called out on strikes;
the third batter hit a triple (scoring one run);
the fourth batter walked;
the fifth batter grounded out (scoring the runner from third, and moving the runner from first to second);
the sixth batter popped out to the first baseman.

So he wins a little of my respect back, and his name substituted into today’s much easier logic puzzle (again borrowed from Mental Floss, for those interested in putting in no effort at all) that should take less than a minute to solve, even without your morning coffee.

Wernick went to the his local grocery to buy the items on his grocery list: tangerines, lemons, carrots, bananas, corn. Based on the clues that follow, try to determine the order in which Wernick made his choices:

1. The first item Wernick bought was a yellow fruit.

2. The second item Wernick bought was orange.

3. The third item Wernick bought was a vegetable.

4. The fourth item Wernick bought was a citrus fruit.

5. The last item Wernick bought was the tangerine.

Enjoy.