Today is Fun and Freedom Friday, the day that anything goes.

A trip down memory lane
I’m a sucker for video games. I played them a lot, starting with my brother way back in the 80’s on Apple and IBM clones with games like Apple Panic and Lode Runner. Lode Runner was really challenging, since we played that with paddles instead of a joystick or keyboard. We both had one paddle and we really had to cooperate all the time. One of us controlled vertical movement and filling of holes, and the other horizontal movement and digging holes. We had great times working our way through the levels.

Later came newer computers with newer games. We loved the adventures like the King’s Quest series, Leasure Suit Larry-series and the likes. They in fact formed a large part of our early lessons in English. We got very creative when we had to type in commands to get things done. Imagine the look on our parents faces when we were discussing what on earth we should do with a “Spanish fly”

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe brings back great memories as well, and Wolfenstein 3D was quite a hit too. After that the magic faded in time. Sure there were Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D (deathmatch on university LAN…yeah!) loads of other games, but I grew old I guess and the wonder faded. I played games a lot, but after Quake II the video games disappeared pretty much from my field of view. Got an XBox two years back, loved it for a while, but it’s gathering dust in the mean time.

Last week I stumbled upon something new

When we visited family from my wife’s side, her nieces had a Nintendo DS. On it was the “game” Brain Age. I liked it! You already know I love lateral riddles and other brain training exercises. This was so much fun to do, shout colors in the stupid thing, solve sudoku, do simple math exercises as fast as you can and so on. I have to admit I tested at 38 instead of 31. So I’m more mature than I thought But less is better (so they say). I need to practice! That’s in the game as well, but if you want more there’s also Big Brain Academy for the DS.

The same game (or similar?) is also available for the other Nintendo console: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. This version is meant for the Nintendo Wii, a very cool game console that sets people in motion. This is a game console that I might just buy, it would be a great combo to get some exercise and relax playing video games at the same time. And have a game to train your brain.

A very useful waste of time

My previous post with riddles turned out to be my most popular post so far. In the meantime all the riddles have been solved, so it’s time to present new ones. Enjoy!

1. She has tasteful friends
   And tasteless enemies
   Tears are often shed on her behalf
   Yet never has she broken a heart
2. What goes with a wagon that
   doesn’t benefit the wagon
   but the wagon cannot move without it?
3. Passed from father to son
   And shared between brothers
   Its importance is unquestioned
   Though it is used more by others
4. Never resting, never still
   Moving silently, hill to hill
   It does not walk, run nor trot
   All is cool where it is not Click to continue »

Edward de Bono introduced the term Lateral Thinking. Nowadays it is used quite commonly. Lateral thinking requires an open mind and you need to be very aware of hidden assumptions. It’s an important skill in finding different solutions than the obvious ones to all kinds of questions. Einstein even took it a level deeper:

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Riddles are a good way to train your lateral thinking skills. Here’s a list of 21 riddles (Update: here’s 21 more)

1. The strongest chains will not bind it
   Ditch and rampart will not slow it down
   A thousand soldiers cannot beat it
   It can knock down trees with a single push
2. The one who made it
   Didn’t want it
   The one who bought it
   Didn’t need it
   The one who used it
   Never saw it
3. Buckets, barrels, baskets, cans;
   What must you fill with empty hands?
4. Five pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on a hill near a
   remote house. Nobody put them on the lawn but there is a perfectly
   logical reason why they should be there. What is it?
5. Every creature in the world has seen it
   But to their dying day they’ll never see
   The same one again
6. Look in my face
   I am somebody
   Look at my back
   I am nobody
7. A man leaves home and makes 3 left turns.
   When he returns home he is met by two men
   one of whom is wearing a mask. Who are they?
8. We love it more than life
   We fear it more than death
   The wealthy want for it
   The poor have it in plenty
9. The light one breaks but never falls
   His brother falls but never breaks
10. Which four letter sport begins with a ‘T’ ?
11. Assume there are approximately 6,000,000,000 (6 billion) people on
    Earth. What would you estimate to be the result, if you multiply
    together the number of fingers on every person’s left-hands? (For the
    purposes of this exercise, thumbs count as fingers, for five fingers
    per hand.) If you cannot estimate the number then try to gues how long
    the number would be.
12. An archeologist proudly told that he had found four silver coins which, according to the inscription “649 B.C.”, should now be 2720 years old. The press considered him a fraud and a dreamer. Why?
13. He got it in the woods
    And brought it home in his hand
    Because he couldn’t find it.
    The more he looked for it
    The more he felt it. When he
    finally found it he threw it away.
14. This wondrous thing, though not
    An herb, can help comfort the weak
    And the dying. It can even be used to
    Rally the troops, or make one start
    Laughing or crying
15. A New York city hairdresser recently said that he would rather cut the hair of three Canadians than one New Yorker. Why?
16. This sparkling globe
    Can float on water
    And weighs no more
    Than a feather
    Yet despite its weight
    Ten giants could
    Never pick it up
17. How could a baby fall out of a twenty-story building onto the ground and live?
18. Whoever has it is angry
    Whoever loses it is even angrier
    Whoever wins it has it no more
19. This engulfing thing
    Is strange indeed
    The greater it grows
    The less you see
20. It can pierce the best armor
    And make swords crumble with a rub
    Yet for all its power
    It can’t harm a club
21. Today he is there to trip you up
    And he will torture you tomorrow
    Yet he is also there to ease the pain
    When you are lost in grief and sorrow

Please post your answers in the comments. I’m sure you’ll be able to solve all of them

Warning: If you scroll down from here, there are answers and spoilers in the comments!

Numbers 7, 10 and 12 are from Creative Puzzles
Numbers 4, 11 and 15 are from Lateral Thinking Problems
Visit their sites for a lot more riddles.

I have some challenging mazes for your brain training this time.

1. A huge collection of a variety of mazes both interactive as print-and-play
2. A 3D maze with rotating perspective
3. One billion mazes, yes you read it right 1.000.000.000 mazes
4. Two-circle mazes, use both to find the solution
5. Match symbols or colors as you go, some are very tough!

Have fun!

Here’s a list of brain teasers to enjoy.

Test your memory, how far do you get with naming the 50 US states in 10 minutes or 49 european countries in 5 minutes, or do you prefer the classic memory game? Most games give you the rules, but here you have to find the rules as you play, don’t get it? Maybe you want to try the idiot test (focus!). Maybe the reaction test prepares you for green button in the idiot test.

Get puzzled over the way your eyes deceive you, or the way game-makers deceive you. Good with numbers? You can now race them as a mathlete. To finish it off, here’s crosswords with the periodic table of elements, or maybe you’ld rather enjoy a game of Mahjongg?

Have fun!