Month: February 2007

Brain Teaser

(from miltownkid with variation)

You are given 12 coins which all look exactly the same. One of them is a counterfeit coin and will be either lighter or heavier depending on what it was made from. Using a balancing scale, take exactly 3 measurements to find the counterfeit coin and determine if it is lighter or heavier than normal.

Balancing Scale

The big variation is that miltownkid’s version didn’t require you to also determine whether the odd item is heavier or lighter, just to find the one which was different. (This version is written more like a story too.) I solved his version in just about three hours but had one particular case where it was undetermined if the weight is heavier or lighter. Having to find that makes it just a bit more complicated. (My solution was also a bit more complex than the canonical solutions available online. (No peeking!))

This one looks easy, and you’ll think you are on the right track about a dozen times before you actually get it. Keep checking that all possible cases can work out in only three measurements. If you solve it, send me an email rather than putting a spoiler in the comments.

Lyrics: Angels in the sky (Sundae Club)

Funny story here… Sundae Club is a somewhat obscure new band that has an album called Technostalgia out. Rosminah recently posted on her blog a YouTube video commemorating the CARE program which used the song “Constant Raincheck” by Sundae Club.

It was a catchy little tune of which I found a free mp3 download which got played incessantly over the next few days at which point I ordered their CD from CD Baby. As an aside, CD Baby’s service absolutely and completely rocks. They managed to get a CD from them in Portland to me in Taipei in five days from the time I submitted the order.

Anyways, funny story time: I had found the lyrics for ‘Angels in the sky’ sometime last week on the web. Today I wanted to find them again and for whatever reason my Googling skills let me down. However, my own damn blog popped up consistently on the first page of the search results I was trying by virtue of having the song listed in the ‘Recently Played’ list (over there on the top right) and having a ‘Lyrics’ category listed further down. So since I couldn’t find the lyrics and my blog was showing up anyways, I figured I’d better put up the lyrics so others could find them. (It is rather ironic that my blog seems to rank so highly in Google.)

EDIT: And of course I happen to find the other lyrics page after this is all written up.

Artist: Sundae Club
Song: Angels in the sky
Album: Technostalgia

Thought I saw angels in the sky
And in my dreams, they’re flying by and by
Shining brightly in the sky, so many colors
And it’s so beau-beautiful

Thought I saw angels in the sky
And in my dreams, they’re flying by and by
Shining brightly in the sky, so many colors
And it’s so beau-beautiful

The world is turning as you sleep
Sure of your body I will be
Halos are drawn in the sky
And I hear your cry and it’s so beautiful

Thought I saw angels in the sky
And in my dreams, they’re flying by and by
Shining brightly in the sky, so many colors
And it’s so beau-beautiful

The world is turning as you sleep
Sure of your body I will be
Halos are drawn in the sky
And I hear your cry and it’s so beautiful

The world is turning as you sleep
Sure of your body I will be
Halos are drawn in the sky
And I hear your cry and it’s so beautiful

And as you lie asleep
(Thought I saw angels in the sky)
The world is turning around you
Sure of your body I will be
All this love I can see

And it’s spinning around you
(Thought I saw angels in the sky)
Halos are drawn in the sky
And I hear your cry and it’s so beautiful

And as you lie asleep
(Thought I saw angels in the sky)
The world is turning around you
Sure of your body I will be…

tcp.com shutdown reminder

For any tcp.com users who didn’t get the memo:

****************************** IMPORTANT ******************************

tcp.com is SHUTTING DOWN on February 28, 2007. You will need to
arrange other hosting service and move all your files and databases
before then.

See the wiki for more information:

http://wiki.jameslick.com/index.php/Tcp.com_shutdown

****************************** IMPORTANT ******************************