The GeekDad Puzzle of the Week from this past week was solved by most using some straightforward snippets of code. While no one was disqualified for claiming to have checked all 1,000,000+ possibilities by hand, most every did admit …
Continue ReadingI discovered yesterday evening that my kids are lightning fast — at least when chased with a lawnmower. So I have a strategy for next year’s Bolder Boulder 10k. With 50,000 runners, many absurdly dressed, and about 15 bands, I’m …
Continue ReadingThis week’s puzzle, while delicious, caused quiet a bit of confusion and a few rather interesting answers. Here is the puzzle as presented:
This morning as I was making both Max and Nora breakfast, I noticed that while their meals …
This week’s puzzle asked how to shoot an arrow as far as possible from the walls of Troy. Ah yeah, projectile motion, baby! (Or as Laurion wrote, “Oooh, trajectory calculations!” Thank you, Laurion….me too!) And if you ever took physics …
Continue ReadingCongratulations to everyone that sent in a correct response for this past’ Mondays Geekdad Puzzle of the Week, “Carets and Vees.” Here is the puzzle as presented:
For your shot at this week’s $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate, send in the …
The solution to last week’s GeekDad Puzzle of the Week.
Continue ReadingBelieve it or not, we survived and are recovering from last week’s pop-top camping trip to Santa Fe. I miss the huevos rancheros, but not the camper’s cycling vortex heater. For those of you who missed this week’s puzzle it …
Continue ReadingDespite the cerebrally-challenged wünderhund, we all survived Easter and even the week after. For those of you who missed it, last week’s puzzle was the following: Not once, but twice during our Easter egg hunt, Shaggy Chewbacca, the lovely newest …
Continue ReadingThe end of spring break is near and with the end of break, we’ll be back to YMCA soccer season. Did you help save the soccer season, dear GeekDads? The answer is yes, mostly. Perhaps it wasn’t my cleanest puzzle …
Continue ReadingAs my son Max and I sat together at his 5th birthday party (natal anniversary party) this weekend, we discussed higher math and how it was going to help him take over the world. After walking him through Fibonacci numbers, …
Continue ReadingIn our months and years of puzzling, we’ve written about Christmas lights and coffee, zombies and presidents, but never have I seen the response generated by a puzzle about farting. Thank you, GeekDad readers, for raising the bar of excellence …
Continue ReadingLo and behold: GeekDad puzzle central is alight this morning with fairly spectacular speculations to this week’s puzzle. And so instead of Oz-like, all-powerful puzzle dictator (if only!), I think this week I’m best as curator. First a recap — …
Continue ReadingCongratulations to the region that hosts the sports team that won the recent televised sporting event! Here is last week’s puzzle: Watching this evening’s televised sporting event (which will remain nameless, so as to save me visits from intellectual property …
Continue ReadingIt’s cold enough that rather than arks, people in greater Denver are building imperial snow walkers this weekend — which means another two days next week spent huffing the off-gassing fluorescent bulbs in the stairwell of the University of Colorado …
Continue ReadingCongratulations to everyone that sent in a reply to Monday’s anagrammatic brain bender. Here’s the puzzle as posted: Max Porter, the Roving Reporter, was just reprimanded by his editor for having too many spelling mistakes in his stories. While they …
Continue ReadingThis week’s puzzle was an insidious one, for truth, made even more insidious by the morally questionable insertion of a proper noun (gasp!). If you didn’t see, the puzzle was as follows: Arrange the following 16 letters in a 4×4, …
Continue ReadingCongratulations to everyone that sent in a reply to Monday’s “Crossnumber” Puzzle. Here’s the puzzle as posted: Across Down 0. Pi 0. Sparta 5. F4 to F7 1. 2^2^2 7. Dozen 2. Luftballons 8. Bond 3. maxint (unsigned) 10. five …
Continue ReadingA couple months back, I got to interview Georgia Tech mathematician William Cook — an expert on the venerable Traveling Salesman Problem. He looks at the problem from an interesting angle: Instead of trying to find the shortest tour, he …
Continue ReadingThis week’s puzzle asked you to use a simple algorithm to split your holiday gift budget across a prioritized list of friends and family (and enemies who, nonetheless, you have to buy for). Here’s the method: • First write down …
Continue ReadingThanks for your answers to this week’s puzzle that asked you to compress the activities of a weekday morning into a desperate 30 minutes of multitasking! It was a bit long, so instead of repeating it here as I would …
Continue ReadingIf you missed it, this week’s puzzle asked you to use basic physics formulas to transform: Of course, specific steps will vary, but here’s one way to do it: . Unfortunately, there were NO CORRECT ANSWERS to this week’s puzzle, …
Continue ReadingIn his answer to this week’s puzzle about multitasking through a family evening, Adam pointed out that time flies like an arrow, and that fruit flies like a banana. So true, Adam. So true. Mark wondered how much would it …
Continue ReadingDo you hear that sound? Yes, it’s the tiny, high-pitched screaming of our dear little hero Corrosive Gecko dying a thousand deaths on his march up the fence. And as much as I hate rewarding Will Etienne with another $50 …
Continue ReadingHowdy ho, sleepy puzzlers. Let me admit this up front: this past week’s puzzle was fairly abstract (some would say abstruse). Here’s the recap: You’re putting the kids to bed and the optimal bedtime ebbs or flows according to the …
Continue ReadingAnd it looked so easy! But last week’s July 4 problem induced the highest number of incorrect answers I’ve seen thus far, mostly engendered by people prioritizing short overall explosion times at the expense of our poor pyrotechnician’s safety. Thanks …
Continue ReadingI am continually chuffed by the wondrous answers dreamed up by GeekDad readers as well as by the tidbits I wouldn’t get anywhere else: for example, from Dan, “Boomerangs have never been used an impact weapons [sic]. They were actually …
Continue ReadingWhen last we left our intrepid father, it was a time of night he hadn’t seen since college and he was standing outside in boxer shorts and gooseflesh waiting for the family dog to finish up so he could crawl …
Continue ReadingSo another Academy Awards evening is in the archives and there are two things we can all agree on: 1) They would have been a heckuva lot better if Ricky Gervais had hosted and 2) the Academy hates geeky movies. …
Continue ReadingPuzzle: As I was waiting in the long, snaking security line at the airport this morning, I noticed a strange TSA code on my boarding pass. I’d never noticed it before and, given the recent changes, I began to sweat …
Continue ReadingCongratulations to Christina McLaughlin who knows what time it is and figured out this week’s puzzle and earned a $50 gift certificate to ThinkGeek. For the solution – and more – read on. Puzzle: I don’t know about everyone else, …
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